Damselfly
by Kimsa Ki-Lurria
Summary: -I give you my heart and soul, Ishida-kun. I give you my hopes, my dreams, my everything. They're yours to keep. Because if not for you…I'd probably still be alive.- After her death, Orihime's ghost comes back, and finds what she least expected. Ishihime.
1. One: The Dead Girl

This is completely unwarranted. I am supposed to be focusing on _While I Sleep,_ but the plot bunny latched on with its vicious little fangs and refused to let go until I appeased. So here is this, and here we go.

Disclaimer: Neither Bleach nor any of its beloved, beloved characters belong to me.

Other: ideally, this would be set after the Hueco Mundo and Fake Karakura arcs. Since (in reality) I have no idea what Tite Kubo will choose to do with those arcs, any references to that story's outcome is entirely guesswork. And me playing around with plot to suit my liking. But mostly guesswork. This is rated for some pretty heavy angst and some violence.

Summary: -I give you my heart and soul, Ishida-kun. I give you my hopes, my dreams, my everything. They are yours to keep. Because if not for you…I'd probably still be alive.- Ishihime.

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_One: __The Dead Girl_

Uryu stood on the fringe of the funeral procession, an outcast and exile amongst the only people who would have him. They probably wouldn't have him now. They would look upon him with pity and hate, regret and shun his existence because of what he had done. What he had allowed to happen.

_"Ishida-kun, look out!"_

His shoes were sinking into the mud. His tie was silently, slowly strangling him, his pants itched, and his shirt did nothing to block out the cold of a windy winter day. It felt like the ground was about to give out beneath his unsteady feet and pitch him forward into a dark, endless hole. Everyone was crowded around the casket like a group of starving people around a feast. They stood with heads bowed, their bloodless, grieving hands clutching flowers to place around the dead girl's head. Everyone had come. Ichigo, Chad, Keigo, Mizuiro, Chizuru; Rukia, Byakuya, Rangiku, Hitsugaya, Renji. People live and dead, humans and shinigami alike, familiar and unfamiliar. Some of them stood off in the distance, looking for all the world as if they didn't belong, and others bunched around the casket as if waiting for the deceased to leap up, alive once more.

He wished, more than anything else in the world, that he deserved to join them in their mourning. For in that casket lay Orihime Inoue, the girl he had loved and would never have.

One of the mourners moved forward and placed his flower in the casket. There was no mistaking the shock of messy, orange hair, even if the boy's shoulders slumped beneath the weight of his grief. Ichigo shoved his hands into his pockets and lowered his head. Uryu couldn't imagine what the other boy was saying to the girl who had loved him, a girl whose affections he hadn't noticed and now never would. He watched Ichigo turn suddenly, his lean frame coming toward Uryu in the jerky movements of someone holding himself together only by the threads of his dignity.

The substitute soul reaper lifted his head and, suddenly, met the Quincy's gaze. His mouth opened in surprise, a question apparent in his eyes.

Uryu whirled on his heel. He had come. He had paid his respects to the girl whose death was as good as his fault. He wasn't needed there anymore.

"Ishida," Ichigo called. The orange-haired boy's footsteps squelched behind Uryu's as he slogged through the mud and grass. "Ishida!"

Uryu sucked in a breath and stopped. He knew Ichigo. He knew the other boy wouldn't stop unless he was knocked unconscious.

"What do you want?" he asked over his shoulder.

Ichigo hesitated. "You came."

Uryu tried hard, so unbelievably hard, to look the other boy in the eye. But he couldn't. He couldn't even bring himself to turn his head toward Ichigo, because all he would see was a towering, monstrous creature of horns and long, animal hair, a Hollow mask and a leering smile bearing toward him, glinting off the deadly blade clutching in its merciless, groping claws. Black spots erupted across the world, and Uryu closed his eyes, breathing slowly to fight back the panic attack.

"Of course I came. She was my friend too."

Ichigo shifted uncomfortably, entering the edges of Uryu's vision. He was visibly shaking from bowed head to toe. "I know. Sorry. I don't think I can…be here anymore, you know? I mean, she's just…she's just lying there, and…"

By the casket, the priest began to read off the sutra that would end the funeral process.

"There's been no word of her soul," Ichigo said quietly. "The shinigami haven't seen her in Rukongai and it's already been days since…well, since she died."

He made a sound that caught itself halfway between a cough and a sob. Uryu nearly looked at the other boy then; he had never seen Ichigo cry. The other boy had always been too strong for that.

But grief could break down even the most impenetrable of all facades.

"_Don't…don't cry, Ishida-kun. I'll be all right. I'll be…"_

The priest finished reading off the book in his hands and closed it with a final _thwump_ that reverberated through Uryu's entire frame like the folding of a dying bird's wings. He blinked, breathed out, and turned his back.

_Walk away. Walk away, Uryu. It's over. You're done here. Now get out before they chase you out._

"Ishida."

There was a hand on his shoulder. There was a hand on his shoulder and his entire, shaking frame was going to collapse under the pressure. Uryu closed his eyes.

"Kurosaki, I don't need to talk to you right now. Or anyone. I need…I need to be alone."

Ichigo released Uryu's shoulder, but the Quincy didn't hear him move away. Rukia entered his field of vision with Chad at her side, her wide violet eyes creased with concern. He felt like shying away from it all. There was a throbbing pain spiking at him from behind his eyes. He needed…he needed to sit down.

"…Yeah," said Ichigo finally, and his voice was that of a stranger's, weak and grief-ridden and full of regret. "Yeah, alright. Sorry."

Uryu trudged away across the cemetery grounds, ignoring the stares he felt boring deep into his unprotected back. All he wanted to do was go and hole up inside his apartment forever, never have to face the people he was sure hated him for letting Orihime die. For killing her.

_He_ hated him for killing her.

_"Don't worry…about me…go find…find…"_

She had been too weak to finish what she'd meant to say. And now all he could think of when he pictured her was her ginger-orange hair, long and curling like the roots of a bloodied tree, stained crimson with the lifeblood that soaked into the ground, his heart and soul. He would never forget that image. She'd been stretched out before him like a dying angel, and all he could do was ease the pain of the death that should have been his.

Orihime was gone. The death gods had no idea where her soul was. She was truly, truly gone in all senses of the word, now that her body was about to be reduced to a patch of fragile, precious ashes small and fine enough to be clutched in the palm of his unworthy hand.

_Gone, gone, gone…_

He'd been too slow. He had failed.

His feet stopped of their own accord, almost as if he was a motor-controlled puppet and he had been turned off. Uryu blinked and stared at the gate facing him. He looked around him, taking in the narrow walls, the people going about their own business, alive and well, as she should have been. He was at Orihime's apartment.

Uryu swallowed and it felt like his heart was passing through his esophagus. What was he doing here? Walking into her living space would only cause him pain. And yet…he pushed open the gate and strode up the steps leading to her door. The doorknob gave beneath his hand when he turned it, the door itself creaking like an old man's joints when he pushed.

The apartment smelled of faded youth and dust and _her_. Uryu took in the room and stopped in the doorway, his mouth threatening to fall open. It was…empty. What little furniture she had was stacked up against the wall, all her belongings overflowing from cardboard boxes piled on top of each other. Someone had been here after her death. Someone had come to pack away all her memories and had left them for him to find.

Uryu knelt by the nearest box, catching a glint of silver amongst the heaps of photos, clothes and cooking utensils. He pulled the object loose. It was a tiny silver locket in the shape of a heart, and when he clicked it open, Orihime's smiling face stared up at him.

The Quincy nearly dropped it back in the pile. It felt like sacrilege, just holding this locket in a room that still smelled so much like her—like strawberry and sweet pea and just the faintest hint of freshly baked cake. He didn't know if it was a gift for her or from her. What if she'd meant to give it to someone? What if she'd meant to give it to Ichigo?

Uryu pried open his fingers, which had somehow clenched possessively around the locket.

_Let go, _he willed himself, but his fingers wouldn't cooperate. They wouldn't let the locket fall back onto the pile of her belongings, belongings that would be given away to strangers who had no idea how strongly she had loved, laughed, lived.

He ended up slipping the locket into his pocket. Slowly, his mind still buzzing with the lingering effects of the panic attack that had nearly beset him at the funeral, he wandered through the house in a daze. He memorized every detail, every crevice, every scent, even though there was barely anything left of her in the place. He wouldn't be coming back. He wasn't strong enough for that.

Uryu closed and locked the door behind him. It wasn't right that anyone could walk into her house, even if she no longer lived there. It was Orihime's home and it always would be, in his mind.

His shoulders were hunched painfully by the time he got home. His mind and feet were on autopilot, and before he realized how much time had passed, he was standing in his own living room, staring around him and hating the fact that he was alive and she was not.

_It should have been me. She should still be alive._

_This is all my fault._

And suddenly, the world was too much for him. Uryu stumbled over to his couch and threw himself down across the cushions. In his pocket, the locket burned into his skin like a brand. He closed his eyes and gave himself up to the wounds that no one would ever see.

_In his dream, Orihime was just as he remembered: beautiful, smiling, happy. Not a hint of blood or slick, gleaming white bone in sight. Just as it should have been._

_"Ishida-kun," she said softly, and touched his hand. "Don't be angry with me."_

_"I'm not," he said, his tone harsher than he'd intended. She pulled back her small hand, dove-gray eyes huge. The hurt in her gaze killed him._

_"Oh," she murmured. "Okay."_

_He closed his eyes and counted silently to three – one, two, three – reminding himself that it wasn't her fault she couldn't read his mind and soul, couldn't see through his impenetrable defenses and into his heart. "No, Inoue-san. It's not okay. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that."_

_"It's fine!" She laughed and rubbed the back of her head. If there was one thing Hueco Mundo had not changed about her, it was her unfailing ability to hide her hurt and plaster a smile over lips that only wanted to twist into a grimace of pain. "Really, Ishida-kun. Don't apologize. I understand."_

_"No," he said, because she really could never, never understand. How could she, when she didn't know how he felt about her, when she couldn't see how it made him feel when her eyes lit up around Ichigo, around the boy who had become the monster, the same monster that had stabbed him clean through with a Hollow's sword and stuck him to the ground like a pinned bug? _

_"No, Inoue-san, you don't understand. I__—__"_

_And then there was light, and her scream__—Ishida-kun, look out—and she was dead._

The sound of shattering glass brought him up from the depths of his nightmare. Uryu was up in an instant, his Quincy bow glimmering in his hands as his blue eyes searched for an invisible foe. His heart pounded somewhere at the base of his throat. The noise had come from the kitchen; he could see into it just a little bit from where he was, but if he stood up…

There was a flash of color in the kitchen's entrance, and he heard the sound of glass shards shifting as whoever was there bent to clean up the mess. Uryu got to his feet, eyes narrowing, but the couch squeaked when he pushed away.

The person in the kitchen went quiet. Then, there were eager, quick footsteps right before the person appeared in the doorway—and Uryu wondered if he had gone insane.

"Hello, Ishida-kun," said Orihime Inoue timidly, the soul chain in her chest jingling as she moved. She bit her lip. "I'm sorry I broke your measuring cup."

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A/N: The end (kidding). :P

-Kimsa


	2. Two: Up from the Grave

Thanks, **Aiko HanaKai, brendabond,** and **Haddrell **for reviewing the first chapter of my new story! Your guys's reviews encouraged me to post the next chapter ASAP. :)

In this chapter, we get that Uryu x Orihime interaction we came for, as well as a surprise visit for Ishida-kun.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach and...well, that's all, really. Don't own.

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_Two: Up from the Grave_

The bow died in Uryu's hands with a weak splutter. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was aware that his mouth was hanging open and his hands were slack at his sides, but all he could think was that Orihime's soul had finally found its way back home: _his_ home.

"Inoue-san," he said, his voice sounding like that of a much weaker person. "You're…"

She winced and poked her index fingers together. "I know I shouldn't have, but you looked so sad. I was going to bake you something very nice. I'm sorry I dropped your measuring glass. I really didn't want to wake you up."

Uryu blinked. Had he heard her right? She was dead, a Plus soul standing in the doorway of his kitchen with her soul chain sprouting from her chest when she should have been in Rukongai already—or worse, a Hollow. It had been just over a week since her death. She shouldn't just be popping up to break things in his kitchen!

Orihime tilted her head. "Ishida-kun? What's wrong?"

The Quincy swallowed. Orihime. Dead. Plus soul. In his kitchen, breaking his measuring glass. …Dead. And trying to _bake him a cake_.

Black spots burst across his vision. Uryu sank back onto his couch with a low groan, pushing his face into his trembling hands. Immediately, Orihime was at his side and trying to comfort him.

"What's wrong?" she asked urgently. "Can I help? Can I—"

The girl reached out and tried to take him by the shoulder, but her insubstantial hands pushed right through his living flesh. Uryu gasped and shied away before he could stop himself; her touch was like icicles piercing his skin. Orihime drew back, her pretty face registering consternation and worry.

"I'm sorry! Here, Ishida-kun, let me try that again…"

She wrinkled her nose in concentration, a tiny gesture that made his heart throb in pain—he'd seen her make that same face too many times to count while she was still alive—and reached out again. This time, her hand lighted on his arm and stayed there. Her face lit up with a smile.

"There!"

Slowly, feeling his hold over himself starting to return in meek crawling steps, Uryu lifted his head to examine the ghost before him. The light was on in the kitchen, and it filtered through Orihime's body as if through a veil, muted and scattered by her essence. She wasn't as transparent as most souls were; in fact, if he hadn't been looking for it, he doubt he would have noticed she was see-through at all. She was still dressed in the same clothes she'd died in: a long, flowing white skirt and the ruffled pink shirt he'd made for her in Soul Society. Her long, golden-brown hair flowed over her shoulders, just as mesmerizing as it had been in life, and her soft gray eyes glimmered good-naturedly. Aside from her transparency, the only way he could tell that this was real, that the past week hadn't been some sort of cruel nightmare, was the cold chain dangling from the spot where her heart should have been. It started at her chest and ended abruptly just inches from her strangely bare feet.

Uryu was still too stunned by Orihime's appearance to puzzle out how her soul chain hadn't disintegrated despite the fact that she had been dead eight days already.

"Inoue-san," he said softly, reaching up his hand. She responded with a curious "Hmm?" and remained still as his hand took her own.

_Cold_, was the first thing that entered his mind, but he pushed aside the discomfort and gripped her fingers in his. This was real. This here, this dainty see-through hand in his, was real. He wasn't dreaming. Orihime was dead, but she was here, with _him_.

"Are you alright, Ishida-kun?" Orihime's question sounded like it was coming through a tunnel, and he vaguely registered that he was sinking into shock. She waved her free hand in front of his face. "Hello? Ishida-kun? Yoo-hoo! Anybody home?"

_I'm fine_, he tried to say, but what came out sounded more like, "Nnrgh."

He promptly fell over on his face and remained there, his head spinning, while Orihime panicked, not knowing why he'd apparently fainted or what she should do. Distantly, he heard her bustle her way into the kitchen and come back with something in her hands. She dropped it once and muttered "Shoot!" under her breath before hurrying over to him.

Freezing water flattened his hair against his head. Uryu shot up, spluttering. Orihime smiled at him sheepishly and set the empty glass she'd been carrying down on the floor.

"Sorry. I didn't know what to do."

"It's—" He coughed, rubbing water from his blinking eyes. "It's alright, Inoue-san."

She leaned back on her bare heels and folded her hands behind her back. Uryu stared, realizing that he could see her clasped hands straight through her lower back, and quickly looked away before he could keel over again.

"How…how are you here?" he asked hesitantly.

Orihime blinked. "Um. What do you mean, Ishida-kun?"

"I mean…" The Quincy paused and solemnly studied her questioning expression. Was it possible that she didn't…_know_? Did she still think she was alive? "I mean, why aren't you in Rukongai, or the Seireitei?"

"Because I'm here, silly," Orihime laughed. Her smile flickered for a moment, nearly too fast for Uryu to catch. "Why? Should I be there?"

What was he supposed to do? It didn't sound like she knew she was dead, but that was impossible; she had been perfectly aware that she was having trouble with her hand going straight through him. The normally-eloquent Quincy was at a sudden and debilitating loss for words. "Because you're…" he gestured helplessly at the soul chain hanging from her chest. Orihime didn't even glance down.

"Because I'm dead?"

"Err." Oh. So she did know. Uryu sat back on the couch with a _thump_. "Yes."

Orihime chewed thoughtfully on her lip. "I know I'm dead, Ishida-kun. It wasn't too hard to guess since no one could see me and the last thing I remember is…pain. And you. I remember you."

She frowned and gave him a puzzled look. "Ishida-kun, how did I…?"

His fingers curled into hard, unforgiving fists, and his voice turned flat, emotionless, when he spoke. "You were murdered."

"Oh." Orihime drew away from him, wringing her wrists in distress. Uryu struggled to push down the overwhelming urge to get up and still her nervous habit. Feeling as if every beat his selfish, accursed heart took was sending him plummeting further down a path he couldn't afford to take, he waited for her to ask the inevitable.

_Please don't_, he silently begged her ghost. _Please don't ask me how you were murdered. I am not strong enough to tell you._

It was almost as if she heard him. Her large, glistening eyes caught his and held his gaze no matter how his soul quailed under his guilt and the terrible secret he harbored in his cowardly heart. Finally, she nodded gravely and turned her head.

Uryu licked his lips and closed his eyes. "Where have you been?"

Orihime pursued her lips. "Hmm?"

"You've been missing for a week. No one has been able to find you."

"I've…I don't know, really." The ginger-haired girl offered an apologetic shrug of her shoulders. "Everywhere. Places I've never seen before. I think I went to Greece once, and then to Hueco Mundo again, and a sunny hill by the seashore. And…a dark place. I can't remember where. Maybe an in-between, like that tunnel we used to get to Soul Society that one time. But every time I think I'm starting to settle down, my soul just decides to up and go somewhere else. This is the twenty-seventh place I've been since I…since I died."

She grimaced suddenly, her sweet face twisting into a visage of pain as her hands leapt up to the spot where her heart should have been. Uryu was on his feet before he knew what he was doing, his hands comforting her shaking shoulders. Her shivering, transparent skin was as cold as a winter breeze beneath his hands.

"Inoue-san? What's happening?"

"It hurts," she whimpered. "Like someone put a hook in my chest and is _pulling_ it. It hurts so much…"

Something sizzled like human flesh being held down into a fire, drawing both Uryu's and Orihime's gazes down to the soul chain. As the Quincy watched in helpless horror, two links dissolved before his disbelieving eyes. Orihime moaned and clutched at her head.

"It's alright," Uryu breathed, still staring at the chain as dread buried its fangs into his veins, making his blood run cold with dismay. "It's going to be okay, Inoue-san."

"I'm turning into one, aren't I?" she asked shakily. She met his gaze with red, teary eyes. Orihime looked more frightened than he had ever remembered seeing her, but she wasn't looking away. "A Hollow."

Uryu tightened his grip on her shoulders. He should have known that his time with her was limited. Fate had given him a pity-break, but now it was back with a vengeance and Orihime's soul in its clawed hands. Even now, the girl he had loved—still loved, loved so much that seeing her dead hurt like a zanpakutou digging into his chest—was leaving him behind. Was turning into one of the creatures he had sworn to destroy.

"We won't let that happen," he told her, and found he had never been so sure about something in his life. He nodded firmly to himself and to her. _I will not let you become a monster, Inoue-san._ "Souls return because they have unfinished business or are being held back by the living. Tell me, Inoue-san: what is missing?"

Orihime's dark eyelashes fluttered as she blinked and took her lower lip between her teeth again. "What is missing? What…?"

She made a face, squeezing her eyes shut with a grunt. Uryu's eyes immediately went to the soul chain, but it wasn't growing shorter.

"It's not that," Orihime said. There was something in her tone that set off alarm bells in Uryu's head, a worry that was only intensified when Orihime stared at him apologetically. "Sorry, Ishida-kun. Umm…I have to go."

"What?"

"I can't stay in one place too long. I think it has something to do with whatever I didn't finish while I was alive." Already, she was growing more like the Plus souls he was accustomed to seeing: insubstantial, completely transparent, and no feet or legs, just a wispy bit of smoke starting at the hips. His hands sank through her, sending jitters of icy cold zipping up and down his arms.

Orihime gave him a sad smile. "Don't worry, Ishida-kun. I'll come back."

But who knew how long that could take? Uryu felt his chest tighten and constrict. He had the sudden urge to tell her, before it was too late, how he felt. To tell her how he had loved her in life and loved her still in death. He opened his mouth, sure that it was the only moment and he wouldn't let it go to waste…and he couldn't say a single word. For all he knew, she still loved Ichigo.

So he closed his mouth and returned her smile, and in the gesture he felt the same sadness he saw in the curve of her lips.

"I missed you," he said quietly.

Her smile broadened, bright like the sun coming over the rooftops of a sleeping city. She opened her mouth and spoke, but whatever she'd tried to say was lost in the empty space that suddenly took her place.

And Uryu was alone.

He went through the motions like a man bereft of purpose, but lingering beneath his bleak surface was the hope that Orihime would soon return to him. With her absence returned the rushing void of guilt that bubbled in his chest like a festering blister. Uryu was sure Orihime wouldn't see her death as his fault, but just as certain as she would be of his innocence, he was convinced of his blame.

If he had moved just a bit faster, if he hadn't been so wrapped up in his feelings that he hadn't sensed the deafening reiatsu charging toward them, if Orihime hadn't sacrificed herself to save him at the last second— if, if, if.

Haphazard was no longer the word he loathed most.

Five days passed without sight of Orihime. Uryu had just begun to wonder if he had seen her at all when there was a knock on his door.

His heart jumped in his throat at the noise. Setting down the shirt he'd been knitting—he needed new clothes and didn't want to leave home in case Orihime visited—he went to answer the door.

Seeing the stern faces of Rukia and Renji on his doorstep sent his heart plummeting right back where it was supposed to be.

"Kuchiki-san? Abarai-san?" He didn't even bother to disguise his surprise.

Some of the sternness in Rukia's frown faded away at the sight of him. Uryu wondered detachedly how he looked to them. He hadn't gone out much since Orihime's death, and he was sure his skin had reached an even paler shade than before. Neither had he slept, his nights haunted by fractured images of Orihime's demise, her murderer bearing down on them, and guilt-heralded nightmares where _Uryu_ was the one to strike her down.

_Those_ nightmares never failed to reduce him to a quivering wreck.

"Ishida-san," Rukia greeted him courteously. Seeming to remember that Uryu was a friend of hers, she added uncertainly, "How are you?"

"Inoue-san has been dead less than two weeks," he said flatly. "I'm afraid us humans don't get over the death of a loved one quite so quickly."

Her shamed wince had him immediately regretting the cold words brought on by his own lack of sleep and peace of mind, but he had a good idea of why she was here, and though he knew she was only doing her job, that didn't make him any more disposed to be kind to her. Renji bristled at his partner's side and pointed at Uryu with one thick finger.

"Hey, look here Ishida, I know you're goin' through a rough time, but that ain't any reason to be—"

Rukia's tiny hand came up and gently pushed Renji's muscled arm down. "It's alright, Renji." Her gaze was suddenly back to being guarded and unyielding the instant she turned it on Uryu. "Renji and I have been tasked with tracking down Inoue-chan's soul. We've been following it all over the world to different spots to see if we can get her back to Soul Society. And…the trail led us here. Where is she?"

Uryu studied them, his mind suddenly feeling like it was brushing off a dozen cobwebs as his thoughts kicked into high gear. He didn't know where Orihime had gone, but then again, should he even admit to seeing her? Ignorance was always a safe card to play. But would it be selfish of him to keep Orihime among the living?

No—in Rukongai he had met a soul who had been purified and sent to Soul Society before he had completed his "unfinished business." The soul spoke of an aching, empty spot in his chest that he could not fill no matter what he tried. He called it torture.

Uryu wasn't going to let Orihime suffer that fate for eternity. There was no use telling Rukia and Renji he hadn't seen Orihime's ghost. They had proof that her soul had been in his house. Yet telling them he didn't know where she had gone wasn't strictly a lie. He only knew she was searching places where she might have unfinished business, not the specifics.

"I don't know," he said bluntly.

Rukia scowled pensively while Renji snorted in disbelief. "C'mon, Ishida, you don't really expect us to believe that one, do ya?"

"Yes, I do," said Uryu. He frowned. "Is that all?"

The death gods exchanged awkward glances and shifted uncomfortably, obviously put off by Uryu's blunt sincerity. "Uh," Renji grumbled, "well, yeah."

"Let us know if you see anything," Rukia said. There was a dim light in her eyes that told Uryu she knew he was hiding something. "You know what would happen if she spent too much time here."

Orihime's face, pinched and gasping in pain, flashed in Uryu's mind's eye. He closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes, I know."

"Alright." Rukia turned to go and hesitated. "And…Ishida-san?"

The Quincy opened his eyes to see the girl contemplating the floor, her expression torn. "Take…take care of yourself."

She and Renji were gone before Uryu could find it in him to thank her for caring. Heaving a heavy sigh, the boy started to head back to his sewing machine before his stomach emitted a loud grumble. He started for the fridge, only to be met with an empty interior and a cold brush of air against his face.

"Empty," he muttered. He hated the idea of leaving his house and missing Orihime, but he needed food.

On went his shoes, a coat, and a dark scarf once he checked the sky and saw a thin layer of clouds glaring back at him. He closed and locked the door behind him with only a faint feeling of disaster hanging over his head.

He walked along the sidewalk with the sharp awareness that he might be followed niggling at him like a forgotten detail. His head he kept down as he passed people, brushing by without a word, and was treated with silence in turn. In and out of the grocery store he went, the fluorescent lights blaring down onto his head and giving him a throbbing headache.

Uryu kept his wits about him as he headed back home. He scanned rooftops and alleyways, corners and edges of buildings, for any sign of a black uniform. But he saw nothing. Perhaps the shinigami had taken his truth for what it was and had moved elsewhere to follow Orihime's trail.

It was with this thought in mind that he found himself when Orihime's ghost suddenly leapt at him from thin air and wrapped her arms around him. Uryu staggered and nearly fell, still leaning back from the suddenness of her attack when she lifted her face and grinned cheekily at him.

"I know what it is, Ishida-kun," she chirped, and her breath was sweet and welcome on his chilled cheeks. "I know what I'm missing."

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A/N: End chapter two. Please leave a review, let me know what you think - like, love, hate? Review!

-Kimsa


	3. Three: The Rose

**Aiko HanaKai, sesshomaruslittlesister, brendabond, Haddrell, **and **Lover of Stories 24: **thanks for reviewing! I know I took a while to get this chapter out, and I'm sorry, but I had huge writer's block. It's gone, so the running will be smooth from here on out. Not sure how I did with this chapter, though, so go ahead and let me know what you think.

Disclaimer: Bleach isn't mine. If it were, IshiHime would definitely be canon. ShunNao too - they're adorable!

Enjoy!

* * *

_Three: The Rose _

"Inoue-san! What are you doing?" Uryu's head snapped back as he nervously scanned the buildings surrounding them for a shinigami lying in wait. He hurriedly disengaged himself from Orihime and internally cursed himself for missing the feel of her pressed against him. She was colder to the touch than betrayal, but she fit perfectly to him, as if she had been made to be with him. He shook the treacherous thoughts away.

_She was never yours to hold. Simply because she can no longer be with _him_ doesn't mean she can be with you._

Orihime blinked up at him, her gray-blue eyes pooling with confusion. "What do you mean? I found you—"

"You can't be out in the open. The soul reapers are looking for you. They want to take you back to Soul Society with them."

The girl's ghost reached out and grasped his cold hands in her own. Uryu jumped, blushing furiously, but Orihime was blind to his embarrassment. "But I can't go yet!" she protested. "I haven't…I just realized what I'm missing!"

"Then hide!" Uryu said urgently.

Too late. Orihime made a sound that got tangled somewhere between shriek and gasp, falling back against him as two black-clad spirits snapped into existence before them. Rukia's gaze immediately went to Orihime's spirit. Her indigo eyes blazed with relief and joy.

"Inoue-chan!"

The startled fear went out of Orihime as if it had never been. "Kuchiki-chan!"  
The two souls rushed forward and enveloped each other in a fierce embrace. Renji exchanged a smile with Uryu before the lightheartedness fell from his tattooed face, and he gave the Quincy a meaningful look. "Ishida, you know what we have to do."

Orihime drew away from Rukia at last and glanced worriedly between Renji and Uryu. "Oh," she murmured, "no, no. Not yet, Kuchiki-chan. I'm not ready yet."

Rukia's smile wobbled into an uncertain frown. "Inoue-chan, you have to pass on to Soul Society. If you don't…"

"I know." Orihime fingered her soul chain nervously. Uryu noticed with a start that it was much shorter than it had been before; five days ago it had been long enough to almost reach her feet. Now it stopped short of her hips.

"Then you know that the longer you wait, the harder it will be for you to stay human," Rukia said heavily. "Your time amongst the living has already been abnormally long, but I'm afraid that won't remain the same. I know it's hard, but if you leave now, you won't have to worry about turning into a Hollow."

"I'll be fine," Orihime said firmly. She looked at Uryu for some reason, her fingers still toying with the chain hanging from her chest. He stared back, not knowing how to react, only understanding that heat was starting to push its way into his cheeks and her gaze made him want to selfishly tell her how much he loved her, no matter how much she loved Ichigo.

Rukia and Renji shared a look.

"Ishida-kun will keep me human," Orihime said softly. "As long as I'm with him, I'll be okay. I just…there's something I have to do. Then I'll be ready."

Rukia gave the other girl's soul chain a wary look. "You don't have much time left."

"I know, and it's been getting shorter faster the more time I spend here. Just please give me a little bit of time."

The shinigami exchanged looks again.

"I can tell my captain," Renji suggested. "He'll report it back to the Captain-Commander and have him call the rest of the soul reapers off."

Rukia nodded and turned back to Orihime's expectant, hopeful face. "At the rate your soul chain is disappearing, we can give you only two days. Starting tomorrow."

Orihime bounced on her heels and surrounded the other soul in another of her all-encompassing hugs. "Thank you, thank you!"

Rukia only smiled and patted Orihime's back. "It's good to see you're alright, Inoue-chan."

The two shinigami left shortly after, leaving Orihime and Uryu in peace once more. Orihime bounded up to Uryu and took his hand. He didn't jump this time, even if he did blush a little; maybe there was hope for him yet.

"Come on, Ishida-kun," Orihime said, tugging on his hand. "Can you take us to Tatsuki-chan? She's part of what I have to do."

Uryu nodded, grasped Orihime's cold hand as tightly as he could without crushing her fingers, and in an instant of light and rushing sound they dropped off his groceries at home and arrived at the doorstep of Tatsuki's house.

Orihime took a nervous step forward and came to an abrupt halt. She stood there, the muted sunlight filtering through her transparent form, and folded her hands in front of her. Unfolded them. Fold. Unfold.

"Inoue-san?" Uryu surprised himself by trying to put his hand on her shivering shoulder. His fingers sank right through her and he retracted them instantly when the girl whirled around in surprise.

Her eyes were wide and glimmering with nervousness. "Ishida-kun, what am I supposed to do? I…she's my best friend. She's like my sister. And I'm…I'm _dead_. What if I'm just going to hurt her by coming here?"

Uryu felt his insides squirm. He wasn't good with offering advice, not even to the ghost of the girl he loved. "You said that Arisawa-san is part of what you're missing."

Orihime nodded solemnly, her eyes cast down to the ground beneath her bare, transparent feet. "I never said goodbye," she murmured. "I avoided her so much those weeks after Hueco Mundo. I…I died without talking to her about….about anything."

She looked up at him, and her eyes turned to glinting crystals as they filled with tears. "What…what kind of friend am I?"

Uryu looked her in the eye. There were so many things he wanted to tell her, countless, wonderful things, as abundant and shining as the stars above his raven-haired head. But it would be unfair of him, to impose his feelings upon her. Especially since he was the reason she was dead. If she knew the truth of her murder, that it was _he_ who should be standing there, translucent, preparing to say goodbye to the person closest to him…she would hate him. He was sure of it. Not even Orihime's kind, endlessly forgiving heart could find the mercy to absolve him of his guilt.

"You are…much braver than I will ever be," he said quietly. "And a much better friend. It doesn't matter that you ran from something that frightened you, Inoue-san. I have done that so many times that it's become almost instinct. But you're here. And I'm sure Arisawa-san would feel even worse if you didn't come to say goodbye."

She stared at him for such a long time that he began to fear he had given away his feelings for her. Finally, just when he thought he might crumple under her wide-eyed gaze, Orihime blinked and gave him a smile soft as he imagined her skin was.

"Thank you," she murmured, took a deep breath, and rang Tatsuki's doorbell.

The seconds it took Tatsuki to abandon whatever she had been tending to echoed in Uryu's chest, stretching out into what felt like minutes, hours, days. Orihime went stiff at the sound of a lock turning, and before Uryu could distance himself, she grasped his hand in hers and squeezed tightly.

"Yeah—?" Tatsuki appeared in the doorway and stopped. Just stopped. Her short, thick hair lay in disarray around her tired-eyed face, and her T-shirt and jeans looked rumpled, as if she'd slept in them for nights in a row. Uryu wondered if she was a female reflection of himself. He could see his own exhausted purposelessness in her drooping brown eyes.

"Hello, Tatsuki-chan," Orihime whispered. Her death grip on Uryu's fingers grew painful.

"God," whispered Tatsuki, and sagged, boneless, against her doorframe. "_Orihime_."

Orihime released a thick, broken sob and clutched her best friend in her arms. Tatsuki remained still and shocked, unmoving even as Orihime's tears soaked her shirt, until she met Uryu's eye. She stared at him, seeming to realize that since he was real, Orihime was real as well. Then the boundaries fell and she was clinging to her friend as though to her very last breath, her strong shoulders shaking.

"I'm sorry," Orihime gasped, pulling away at last. "I'm so sorry, Tatsuki-chan! I was just so scared to tell you about anything. I didn't want you to get involved. And then…I…"

"I went to your funeral," Tatsuki said hoarsely. "Everyone said it was a car accident. But I knew they weren't telling the truth. I knew they were hiding something from me. I just didn't know what."

The brown-eyed girl's breathing calmed down somewhat, but she pulled Orihime back to her, burying her face in her friend's shoulder and squeezing her eyes shut.

"I thought I'd never see you again," she gulped. "I thought you'd gone and moved on without me and I would have to wait until I died to see you."

"I'm sorry," Orihime cried, and it was the only thing that she seemed to think of, whispering and wailing her apologies into her friend's shoulder as if she could make up for a hundred unacknowledged grievances. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

All Uryu could do was wait. He waited until the sobs and hiccupping passed in their maelstrom of grief, and he waited until Orihime had the strength to release her best friend and look at him once more.

"I don't have much time left here," she said, her voice still thick with tears. "I don't know when I'll be able to come back."

He nodded, even though his stomach felt like it was twisting itself into tighter and tighter knots. _It's not fair. She should be able to spend as much time as she wants to say goodbye. Why must she rush this? Can't you give us a little more time?_

Uryu didn't know who he was speaking to. Anyone who would listen. Everyone who would listen.

"What do you mean?" Tatsuki asked. "Orihime?"

"I'm not allowed to stay in one place for very long," Orihime said apologetically. "I don't know why. I can't control where I'm going, either, or how soon. Sometimes I can feel when I'm going to leave. And now…"

She hesitated, biting her lip. "Tatsuki-chan…let's go to the park."

Uryu trailed after the two girls, one living and one dead, as they trekked over cement and grass until they reached the park not far from Tatsuki's house. They talked as they went, using thin voices trembling with nostalgia, voices that were reedy and exhausted with only the barest thread of strength keeping them from slipping back into the sable sobs of sorrow. Orihime explained about Hueco Mundo, Aizen and Soul Society, and Tatsuki listened patiently, too relieved to be in her friend's presence to bother with doubt.

The two girls perched on two empty swings and kicked their legs, diving back into the safety of their fonder memories. The park with its playground and sprawling open ground was empty that cloudy, gray day, and any passerby who witness Tatsuki's mouth moving thought she was speaking to Uryu.

_What are we doing here?_ The Quincy wondered.

Orihime caught his confused stare and said, "Tatsuki-chan and I used to play here all the time when we were little. It was the only place we could play and not have to worry about bullies finding us."

"Yeah," said Tatsuki with a dry smile. "You should have seen us, Ishida. We were pretty tough, huh, Orihime?"

"Me?" Orihime widened her storm cloud-eyes. "Not me, Tatsuki-chan! You were always the strong one."

The orange-haired girl hesitated and lowered her eyes, solemnity drifting back over her like a shade of mist. "I'm the weak one who avoided her best friend."

Tatsuki stilled on the swing set. "Hey," she said, tapping Orihime on her arm. "Don't say that. You _are_ strong. You know, most people would be freaking out over being dead. You? You're worrying about other people instead of yourself. That's just what you've always done, isn't it—you're just a good, strong person that way. So don't say you're weak. Because I don't hang around weaklings. Got it?"

Orihime's smile trembled. "I'm going to miss you, Tatsuki-chan."

"Yeah," Tatsuki said gently, "I'm gonna miss you too."

Uryu looked away. He'd never seen a friendship so pure or unbreakable, and witnessing the separation of two friends who had been through everything together made him feel like an intruder.

Orihime forced a light little laugh and rubbed her head. "Eh. If only we'd been able to do more exciting things together, huh?"

"Like what?" Tatsuki asked, raising an eyebrow. "Running off to battle those Hollow things?"

"No." Orihime grinned. "Like skydiving."

Tatsuki groaned and shook her head. "I still can't believe you really wanted to do that."

"But it looks like so much fun!"

"Yeah, if you want spit all over your face every time you open your mouth. Seriously, I can't understand why people like being that high above ground. Me, I like my feet planted right where I can see them."

"Would you have gone with me if I asked you to, though?" Orihime asked. Tatsuki gave her a serious look.

"Do you even have to ask? I'm not afraid of anything!"

"Why don't we see, then?"

Both girls whirled around in surprise. Uryu himself was startled by his outburst and fiddled with his glasses to stall.

"What'd you mean, Ishida?" Tatsuki asked with a challenging widening of her eyes.

"My Quincy powers allow me to harvest reiatsu and shape it into any form I want," Uryu explained. "I may not be able to help you skydive properly, but we can get close."

Orihime's eyes lit up with hopeful promise, but Tatsuki's darkened with the promise of something much less good-natured. Uryu pretended not to notice.

"Could you, Ishida-kun?" Orihime leapt to her feet and bounced excitedly. "Would you?"

"Hai, Inoue-san," he said with a bow of his head. "Though…not here. This is too exposed."

"Then how about a rooftop?" Orihime asked, pointing to the top of an apartment complex across the street.

Tatsuki got to her feet with a grumble.

"Nervous, Arisawa-san?" Uryu asked. He could barely restrain the wry smirk that tugged playfully at his lips when she gave him a deadly glare.

"Why would I be nervous?"

"Good," he said, took her hand in his and Orihime's in his other, did a quick check to make sure no one was looking, and transported them to the apartment complex's roof.

Tatsuki made a strange sound in her throat and wobbled for a second before shaking her head, much like a wet dog after a shower. "What was that?" she grunted, putting a hand to her head.

"Hirenkyaku." Uryu scanned the street for bystanders, but he needn't have worried; it was far too early on a Sunday for people to be wandering around under a cloudy sky. "I use it to transport us to different places."

"Like flash step," Orihime added helpfully. Tatsuki stared blankly at her friend's ghost for a second before shaking her head again.

"You know, I'm just gonna stop questioning it. What do we do, Ishida?"

Instead of replying, Uryu concentrated on gathering spirit particles and shaping them into the same board of light he'd formed while he, Chad and Ichigo had made their way to Hueco Mundo. Tatsuki stared at the board and rubbed her eyes.

"I'm never gonna get used to this," she muttered under her breath.

Uryu smiled and stepped onto the board. It shifted under his weight and bobbed for a second before hovering an inch above the flat rooftop. "It's perfectly safe, Arisawa-san," he said, seeing Tatsuki's wary expression. The black-haired girl shot him a dark look and slowly stepped up onto the board.

"Yeah, yeah," she said, settling close behind him. "If you say so, Ishida."

Orihime stepped behind Tatsuki without hesitation and wrapped her arms around her friend. "Um, Tatsuki-chan," she said nervously, "you might want to hold on."

"Wha—ack!"

Uryu restrained a laugh as he ordered the board to lift and sail off the rooftop. Tatsuki flung her arms around his middle and clung as if trying to crush him with sheer force…which, now that he thought about it, she probably could.

The spiky-haired girl jabbed Uryu in his ribs. "Just don't drop us, Ishida!" she hissed.

Uryu smirked at her. "Wouldn't dream of it, Arisawa-san."

Up, up, and up the board went, until it was so high that even if Uryu hadn't manipulated the spirit particles around them to act as a cloaking mechanism, most humans wouldn't have been able to see them clearly.

"Uh," said Tatsuki, "you're…you're not just gonna drop us, are you?"

A smirk was the only warning she had. The board plunged beneath their feet a second later, sending them plummeting far below. Even with his feet still firmly on the spirit-board, Uryu's heart and stomach leapt into his throat. Tatsuki was holding on so tightly he imagined he could feel his ribs snapping one by one. Wind rushed in his ears. Orihime shifted between laughing and screaming until it almost sounded like she was doing both at once.

"Orihime, he's gonna kill us!" Tatsuki screamed in Uryu's ear.

"But I'm already dead!" Orihime crowed.

Uryu snatched back his control over the board and smoothed out their fall until they were gliding along as if it was something they did every day. The Quincy glanced back and smirked again at the sight: Tatsuki's strangely lackluster hair had its usual spikiness back, and Orihime's burnt-orange locks were scattered chaotically around her wildly grinning face.

"Again, Tatsuki-chan, again!" she giggled, jiggling her arms around her friend's middle. Tatsuki gave her an incredulous stare over her shoulder.

"Are you insane? I'm not going to do that ag—"

"Ishida-kun, one more time!" Orihime prompted him. Internally, Uryu groaned; he'd had quite enough of feeling like his stomach and lungs were switching places, but Orihime had died for him. This was the least he could do.

The board soared high into the air. Tatsuki squeezed Uryu until he thought he might faint.

"Arisawa-san, you don't have to hold so tightly," he reprimanded her, bringing the board to a sudden halt. "I manipulated the board so you can't fall off even if you let go."

"No!" Tatsuki said stubbornly. "I don't trust this thing. I'll let go when I have my feet back on the ground."

Orihime chortled at their bickering and leaned forward, nearly pushing Uryu off balance. "Go on, Ishida-kun! Let's do it again!"

They dropped. Uryu angled the board at an incline instead of a straight free fall, making Orihime shriek with delight. Down, down, down, Orihime's contagious laughter in his ears and his hair whipping around his face…

And suddenly the board was lighter.

"Ishida!" Tatsuki shouted, suddenly squeezing tighter. "Orihime's gone!"

Uryu came to a screeching halt, nearly flinging both of them off the board. He turned around as Tatsuki loosened her grip on his middle. His stomach plummeted at the sight of the empty space behind her.

"Did she fall?" he asked desperately.

Tatsuki shook her head. She stared at the space over her shoulder blades, deep in thought. "She was laughing," she said calmly. "Then she stopped, and I heard her say…goodbye. I could feel her disappearing even though she was still holding onto me. Like she fell up."

The girl looked up and met his eyes, her gaze serious and knowing. "That's it, isn't it? That's all the time I get with her."

Uryu felt inexplicably sorry for her. "She might come back," he said, trying to think of things that might comfort her. "She comes and goes. Maybe she'll be able to control it this time."

Tatsuki laughed bitterly and shook her head. "No, that's it. I know that's it. And it's okay. Really. I got to say goodbye. Too many people…they don't get that chance."

She pulled back from him, once more reminding him of how powerful her gaze could be. "It wasn't a car accident, was it?"

Uryu closed his eyes. "No."  
"Did you kill the bastard?"

"…Yes."

"Good."

They hovered high above the world, silent. Finally, Tatsuki stirred and nodded against him. "Take me home?"

He dropped her off on the same empty doorstep, standing awkwardly on the sidewalk while she unlocked her door and swung it open. She paused in the doorway, one hand on her doorframe, and turned around, but not to him. Her thoughtful face was turned up to the sky, where the first hints of breeching sunlight were beginning to show.

"Ishida," Tatsuki said, spearing him with her gaze. "You swear Soul Society's real? That I might get to see her again?"

Uryu looked her in the eye and nodded. "It's real."

Tatsuki breathed out. She looked tired, but there was a hint of contentedness in her eyes too. Uryu turned to leave when she called out to him again.

"Ishida."

He looked back over his shoulder. Tatsuki stood there, studying him for what felt like a millennium, and gave him a sad half-smile.

"If she does come back, it won't be for me."

Uryu stared at her, uncomprehending. Tatsuki rolled her eyes at his thickness and waved at hand at him, saying, "Oh, never mind. Just get out more. You look like you live in a cave."

She closed the door before he could come up with a snappy response.

Uryu went back home and finally ate the breakfast he'd been neglecting all morning. He wandered around his tiny apartment for a while, finished that shirt he'd been busy sewing, and did some ancient homework, just because he might have to turn it in if his life ever went back to normal. His father was probably having a heart attack over his grades by now.

The day brightened gradually as it went on, and he opened his window shades a little to let some light in, but not even the warmth of sunlight could lift his mood. He felt…strange. Empty and thin, as if he no longer had any drive. Schoolwork was trivial. Homework and cramming over tests all seemed so insignificant in light of the battle in Hueco Mundo. Uryu had nearly lost his life several times. And now Orihime had lost hers.

Was he depressed? If he was, then he deserved it. Having Orihime around him pulled on the most exhilarating and torturous emotions he had ever felt. Dead, it was as if all her cares in her life past were gone. Hueco Mundo seemed banished from her soul, its cold, lifeless sands no longer haunting her every day. Uryu would love her even if she was still tortured by the memory of her captivity, but he knew that her enthusiasm and love of life were the reasons he'd fallen for her in the first place. Their return brought back his love for her full force.

Yet, at the same time, her presence was torture. She had already come back to him once, returning to him, of all people. Was it hard on her, to force whatever was making her leave to obey her so that she could see him? Would she still visit him if she knew that her death should have been his? That she might still be alive if it wasn't for him?

Guilt. Now he knew the feeling better than every scar on his archer hand.

_A rose by any other name would be just as beautiful, _a quote drifted into his head, _but its thorns would sting just as painfully._

It described his love and guilt perfectly.

The sun was just beginning to sink beneath the horizon when Uryu picked himself up and went to his forest training spot by the waterfall. He had buried himself in the teachings of the Quincy after his grandfather had died. The rhythmic motions of _pull back, release, pull back, release_ eased his roiling mind and settled him into a calm state of forgetfulness.

A freezing hand on his shoulder startled him just as he was aiming another spirit arrow at the waterfall. Uryu jumped, sending the arrow sailing high into the sky, and whirled around with his bow armed.

Orihime smiled and held her hands up above her head. "I surrender!"

Uryu blinked uncomprehendingly at her for a moment. "Inoue-san," he breathed, feeling a broad smile starting to stretch across his lips. "You're back! Where did you go?"

"New Zealand," Orihime said promptly. "I'd forgotten—Sora always said he'd take me there one day. I guess I had to go so our wish wouldn't stay unfulfilled."

Her soul chain jingled as she moved toward him, and Uryu noticed that it was a link or two shorter than earlier. Orihime followed his gaze.

"It's slowing down," she said. "Maybe we have more time?"

Or maybe it was a single reprieve and would not continue. Uryu banished the bleak thoughts and smiled at the girl's ghost, putting away his Quincy bow as he did.

"I was practicing," he explained. "I haven't just practiced using my Quincy powers since before I left for Hueco Mundo."

Orihime twisted her fingers together and looked away. "You were so brave," she murmured. "You and Chad and Kurosaki-kun. I should never have left with Ulquiorra. I should have gone to someone for help."

"There was nothing you could do. Hueco Mundo was Aizen's fault, and no one else's."

"Yes, but…they gave me one night to say goodbye. I keep thinking I should have gone for help instead of doing as they wanted me to. Maybe if I had, things would have turned out differently."

Uryu knew who she'd chosen to say goodbye to without having to ask. She looked so downtrodden, beaten and glum in the fading light that he reached out his hand and reformed the spirit board. Orihime's eyes widened.

"Ishida-kun…?"

He stepped onboard and reached out his hand silently. Orihime looked from his face to his hand for several seconds. Then she smiled and accepted his help, but instead of stepping behind him as he expected, she lifted up and positioned herself in front of him.

"Not more skydiving?" she asked, settling back into his chest. Uryu hoped to whatever power might be listening that she hadn't felt his heart skip a beat.

"No," he said hoarsely, winding his arms around her middle as they lifted off the ground. Orihime leaned into him and gripped his hands over her stomach when they passed the treetops. Her nervousness disappeared the instant she saw the sunset.

"Ishida-kun, look," she breathed, the wind tousling her hair against his cheeks. "It's…it's so pretty! I've never seen it from this high before."

Still they lifted higher, until the trees and city buildings were tiny as pushpins below them, and the wind cut through their clothes and skin. The fading light stretched out across the sky in rivers of pink, orange and violet, coloring their separate world with life.

Orihime let out a breathy laugh and rested her head on his collarbone.

"Do you think that if we go high enough, we might still see the sun, even when it's set?"

Uryu smiled. It felt like all his guilt and grief, all the emotions heavy enough to drag him to his knees, had been left behind far beneath them. He and Orihime were a single patch of life above all the rest, protected, secluded, sheltered.

It couldn't last, but for the moment, it was all he needed.

* * *

A/N: Go ahead and let me know what you think! The second it takes for you to review will guarantee a faster update. :)

-Kimsa


	4. Four: Dearly Beloved

Thank you everyone who reviewed! And thank you Bookaholic711, for founding Project P.U.L.L. (for which this is being posted) - otherwise, who knows how long it would have taken me to bring myself back to writing this story?

And of course, I apologize for the ridiculously long wait. I have no excuse.

Disclaimer: Bleach does NOT belong to meeee. :)

* * *

_Four: Dearly Beloved_

_"Ishida-kun?"_

_She was wearing the pink shirt he had made for her, the one with the curling rosette near her heart and the rippling frill down the front. Her small hands tugged nervously on the hem, her blue-gray eyes staring down past her long, ruffled white skirt to her sandal-clad feet. She was paler than before, soft-colored from days of being shut away in a land where day and sunlight and fresh air did not exist. Her two front teeth took her chapped bottom lip and gnawed on it worriedly, as if she were afraid._

_Uryu remembered everything about Orihime that day. It was like his vision was super-imposed, as if he were looking at the world from behind a massive magnifying lens._

_"What is it, Inoue-san?" he asked in a subdued voice. After Hueco Mundo, she had become so withdrawn, so quiet and fragile-looking. He was almost afraid that if he spoke in anything above a murmur, she might shatter. "Is something wrong?"_

_Orihime lifted her head and squared her shoulders. "I'm not going to wait any more," she said calmly. "I thought I could, but after Las Noches…after everything Aizen did, everything I saw, I can't…"_

_Uryu frowned. Something wasn't right. There was a tickling sensation at the base of his skull, the same feeling he got whenever he was experiencing a strong wave of déjà vu. He tried to speak up, to ask what was happening, but his lips remained sealed shut. It was like he was trapped inside his own body._

_"Today is the day," Orihime said firmly. She bit her lip again, but this time it was to suppress the golden smile spreading across her lips like wildfire. "No more waiting."_

_The girl he loved took a deep, steadying breath, looked him in the eye and uttered the last words that would ever crush his heart._

_"Today is the day I confess to the one I love."_

Uryu woke up. His eyes felt sticky and gritty, his back muscles cramped from sleeping in a bad position. Rubbing a hand over his sleep-wrinkled face, the Quincy rolled out of bed and condemned himself to facing another day. Another day of goodbyes.

Something dug into his hipbone as Uryu got to his feet. A quick dig into his pocket revealed that he had kept Orihime's locket with him when he had gone to bed. After showing Orihime the sunset, Uryu had been granted a generous thirty minutes with the girl's spirit. Her departure left him roiling with confusion as to his next steps, and in seeking an outlet for his frustration, he'd practiced well into the early hours of the next morning. By the time he returned home, swaying and feeling strangely satisfied, he'd been too exhausted to muster up the effort to change into sleepwear. Instead, he'd collapsed onto his bed, curled up on the covers, and passed out.

_I should return this._ Uryu uncurled his fingers from around the silver locket, steeling himself to make a move. _Put it near her ashes, return it to her home, show it to her and ask her what she thinks should be done with it. But it isn't mine to have._

_Knock, knock, knock!_

The noise at the door nearly startled Uryu into dropping the locket. A frown marring his stress-lined face, the Quincy slid Orihime's locket into his pocket, to give to her later. He opened his front door with some trepidation, asking warily, "Hello?"

"Got him!"

The next thing Uryu knew, a thin fist had wrapped its fingers in the front of his shirt and dragged him past his doorstep. Before he could so much as lift a finger to defend himself, the Quincy found himself yanked down to meet a pair of determined brown eyes. He blinked.

"Arisawa-san?"

"Yep." Tatsuki gave him a dry smirk and gestured behind her. "So here's the question of the day. Are you gonna come quietly, or do we have to do this the hard way?"

Over Tatsuki's thin shoulder, Ichigo, Chad and Rukia gave Uryu varying looks of sympathy and amusement. "Hey, sorry, Ishida," Ichigo said with a shrug. "We haven't seen you in days and Tatsuki wasn't exactly gonna let us opt outta this one."

"Damn right. You look even more like a vampire than usual, Ishida," Tatsuki said with a determined nod. "So? What's your answer?"

Uryu nailed her with the flattest, driest glare he could muster. Judging by the way Ichigo rolled his eyes, he'd succeeded, but Tatsuki didn't budge an inch. She glared right back at him, eyes glowing with a vivacity he hadn't seen in her the day before.

Finally, Uryu sighed, "I suppose it wouldn't make much of a difference if I said no, would it?"

"You might have a couple less bruises, but…"

"Fine." Uryu irritably disengaged Tatsuki's hand from his shirt and swept his gaze along his friends. Each of them met his eye without flinching, and he felt a certain warmth start up in his chest at the sight of their open, welcoming expressions. The last time he'd seen all of them together, their heads had been bowed in mourning.

"What is it?" he asked reluctantly.

Ichigo lifted up a single finger. "One: you have to get out of the house. Tatsuki was right, Ishida, you look like hell."

"As always, Kurosaki, your opinion is appreciated."

"And," Chad added quietly over Ichigo's automatic protest, "we heard that you've seen Inoue. She hasn't come to any of us yet. We were thinking that if we visited you, we might get to see her also."

Uryu nodded silently. He could understand that; he would have done anything to see Orihime if his role had been switched with, say, Ichigo's.

Rukia stepped forward. In the gray light her indigo eyes glowed with an unearthly tinge, reminding him once more that the youthful body was nothing more than a pleasant mirage. "We also just wanted to see you," she said smoothly. "It's not healthy for you to hole up in your house after a death. You humans were never very strong to begin with." Her lips twitched up in a sardonic smile. "So, we've come to kidnap you."

"And we don't care if you're not 'presentable' or 'well-dressed' or 'fed' or any of that prissy-boy stuff you like," Tatsuki concluded. She pushed Uryu forward with a hand on his back and pulled the door shut with an air of "so there." Uryu didn't bother with attempting to get back inside; Tatsuki would probably render him unconscious, convinced that he wasn't coming with them.

"Where are we going, exactly?" he asked, suddenly curious.

Ichigo answered with a shrug and an easy, "Hell if I know. Tatsuki dragged me over here against my will too, you know."

Tatsuki brushed past the group and started to saunter her way down the street. "All of you complain too much," she called over her shoulder. She paused in her steps and looked at Uryu. "Besides, when was the last time you just hung out, Ishida?"

Because he really had no answer to that—he was tempted to say, sometime before Orihime was kidnapped and we embarked on a mission into a supernatural realm to save her—and because he knew Tatsuki didn't really want a specific answer, he gave up and allowed himself to become the center of the group for the first time. Ichigo, Chad and Rukia flanked him from the sides and from behind like some sort of mashed-up escort, while Tatsuki led the way into town.

Uryu struggled with himself. On one level, he was uncomfortable because he wasn't used to being the focus of so much attention. He wasn't used to people being there because of him, for him, talking to him with nothing in mind but helping him survive. He was glad when small distractions rose up and the group would move away from him, at least for a little bit, because solitude was natural and clean and quiet, just the way he liked things to be.

Not like Orihime's last moments at all.

They were inside a small clothing store when a burst of laughter from Rukia as she forced a too-small hat onto Ichigo's head caught Uryu's attention. The orange-haired boy balked away with his customary scowl, but there was something indulgent in his gaze, something softer than what he turned on most people. Rukia's own demeanor was light, her smile bright and shining—but then, he expected a soul reaper would be used to death and would overcome grief fairly easily. Tatsuki seemed to be dealing with her friend's passing well, consider she'd only seen her ghost the day before. Even Chad exuded a faint sense of contentment; what Uryu could see of his eyes gleamed good-naturedly as he watched Ichigo and Rukia quarrel.

Being around so many dead in Soul Society seemed to have dulled much of grief's ache. Everyone was bright, adjusting, willing and almost ready to let the past slide by. Everyone, it seemed, but him.

Knitted cloth suddenly rolled over his face, pressing his glasses uncomfortably into the bridge of his nose. Uryu yanked the woolen hat off his head with an angry gesture and spun, ready to chew out whoever had interrupted his reverie—

Orihime's ghost held up her hands and spread her fingers apart. "Only me, Ishida-kun! Relax!"

Uryu dropped the hat in surprise. "Inoue-san!"

Rukia and Ichigo immediately stopped fooling around, and Uryu was almost bowled over when Tatsuki rushed past him to envelop her friend in another hug. Suddenly, the focus of the group shifted from the Quincy to the dead girl, and Uryu found himself squished between Ichigo and Chad as the two came forward to greet Orihime.

"Urk—" said Uryu, tapping Ichigo on the shoulder as the boy accidently elbowed him in the ribs. "Kurosaki, get your elbow out of my kidneys."

"Oh. Sorry, Ishida," Ichigo said distractedly, and turned back to Orihime, who was basking in the attention her friends were giving her. The girl noticed Uryu's plight and quickly moved to his side, forcing their group to back off or risk crushing her too.

"I'm lucky I get another day with you," Tatsuki joked with a smile.

Orihime laughed lightly. "I think I'm lucky I got to come back here at all! It's getting harder and harder to control where I can go. A couple days ago, I could just think about a place, and I would be there, but now? I really have to put some sweat into it!"

Uryu smiled. A warm, pleasant feeling was spreading through his stomach, heating him even as they moved outside to avoid the shop owner's stares, and the cold air hit his skin. Nothing seemed to have changed. Aside from the fact that he could see through Orihime as through gauze and there was a worryingly short chain dangling from where her heart should have been, it was almost as if Orihime had never died.

A question from Ichigo brought Uryu careening back into the present.

"So does that mean you're leaving tomorrow, then?"

Utter silence descended over the group. There was a long moment in which everyone seemed to withdraw into their own isolated worlds, and began to finally, fully realize that their friend was dead and was passing on without them.

"I mean, we'll still be able to come see you and stuff, right?" Ichigo asked Orihime, and looked to Rukia for confirmation. The petite shinigami shrugged.

"You saved them, twice, from making two very bad mistakes. I would say they owe you at least a couple dozen visits every now and then."

Orihime's transparent face warmed with a smile. "And at least it's not like it will be the first time I've ever been there! Maybe Captain Unohana will even let me start serving as a healer right away."

"I don't doubt it," Rukia agreed. "We're always in short supply of enough healers; everyone wants to be a soldier, so the Fourth is always looking for new recruits. And with your history, Captain Unohana is bound to let you in."

Orihime beamed.

Their group walked aimlessly for a long time, up and down streets, through stores and other buildings, everyone fearing that if they stopped for too long, the wandering-curse that had settled over Orihime like a black, heavy blanket would swoop her up in its folds and carry her off into the silver-gray sky. Again, Uryu found his thoughts straying more and more to how normal everything appeared. Ichigo and Rukia were bickering again, Chad was silent in the background, and Orihime added her cheerful quips whenever the opportunity arose.

But one thing was different. Orihime seemed happy to stay by Uryu's side, merely observing Ichigo and Rukia from a distance with a conciliatory look upon her face, whereas before she would have been hovering around the other boy's side with a look of devotion in her eyes. Uryu wondered at the strangeness of it all. Had the afterlife changed Orihime's perception of her relationships? Did she no longer hover around Ichigo because she knew it was almost time for her to leave the world? Or was it something entirely different, something right in front of him, that he could not see no matter how hard he squinted or scrunched his eyes?

Whatever the case, it soothed Uryu's nerves. He had been anxious that Orihime would be hanging onto Ichigo's every word once she returned to say goodbye. Contentment washed over him and the entire group as they walked on into the afternoon.

And then, somewhere between one street and another, Orihime stopped in her path and clutched her stomach.

"Oof!" she grunted, as if someone had just whacked her in the stomach. "I think that's the call."

No one seemed to know what to say. Finally, just as Orihime was beginning to drift away at the edges, Ichigo stepped forward with a fond smile.

"We'll see you soon, Inoue. And say hi to that prickly big brother of Rukia's for us, will you?"

Orihime wrapped her arms around her abdomen with a sad little laugh. "Yessir, Kurosaki-kun," she said. Then her eyes dimmed and seemed to fill with a deep and powerful regret, the likes of which Uryu would rarely see again.

"Goodbye."

In the moments after Orihime's departure, there was silence and hitched breathing and the sounds of the town moving on without them. Uryu stirred, feeling out of place and awkward, and took a step back.

"I think I should…"

Faster than he could react, Tatsuki stepped forward and gripped his wrist in a vise-like grip. "You're not going anywhere, Ishida. We got to see Orihime, but there was another reason for dragging you out of your house, remember?"

Uryu fought the urge to narrow his eyes at her. He thought he knew what she was trying to do. Some way or another, she had put the pieces together: he hid in his home all day, refusing to see anyone, snapping at those who attempted to visit him. Either she had added two and two and realized his feelings for Orihime, or had come to a much more serious revelation—that he blamed himself for her murder.

He highly doubted it was the first reason, since Tatsuki had beaten bloody the last guy who'd openly admitted to a crush on Orihime, and he didn't think the fiery-spirited girl would appreciate a silent admirer any more than an outspoken one (she would probably label him a creeper or something). No, it had to be the second reason. She had realized his guilt, his blame.

Uryu tried to pull away. "Arisawa-san…"

"No." And with that simple word of dismissal, Tatsuki tugged on his wrist and forcefully dragged him down the sidewalk. The group trailed behind, and Uryu thought he heard Ichigo give a huff of amusement. Quietly, in a whisper so soft he could barely hear it, Tatsuki said to him, "You're going to admit that it wasn't your fault whether she has to drill it into your head, or _I_ do."

He tried even harder to pull away when he realized just where she was taking him. Anger rose up, bit his tongue and filled his mouth with a sharp, bitter taste not unlike the copper tinge of blood. Tatsuki came to a stop, and Uryu jerked his wrist out of her grasp. Over the roaring of blood in his ears, he heard the scuffing of shoes as Ichigo, Rukia and Chad stopped behind him. Someone sucked in a sharp, worried breath.

This street. This sidewalk, this very patch of cement he was standing in front of. He recognized the place with horrifying, burning clarity, could tell it was the right place down to the very cracks beneath his feet. _They removed the cautionary tape_, he thought dazedly. _Because Soul Society covered up the incident and pretended it was nothing more than a car accident._

Inexplicably, that thought was the one that broke free the pent-up rage that had begun to curl in his stomach like a choking vine.

Tatsuki had brought him to the site of Orihime's death.

The dark-haired girl stood in the middle of the sidewalk, her hands curled into defensive fists at her sides as she stared Uryu down. He glared back, feeling rage begin to stir in his gut for the first time since the fight with the Espada that had acted as Orihime's jailer in Hueco Mundo.

"Just what did you think you would accomplish by bringing me here?" he snapped, and his words came out sharper than the edge of Ichigo's zanpakutou.

Tatsuki didn't back down. "I needed something to snap you out of it," she said. He could pick out fine trembles traveling up and down her skinny arms, and understood that being here, where Orihime had been cut down and had spilled out onto the sidewalk, was terrifying her almost as much as it was him. Uryu waited for the sympathy and was pleased when it did not come.

"If this is what it takes to get through to you," Tatsuki continued, "then fine. I'll do it. You know…you know that if she knew what you're thinking, she would hate herself?"

Uryu took a step back before he could stop himself. Everything faded away until it was just him and Tatsuki, the two humans and the place they both hated most in both this world and all the others.

"I'm not talking about this," Uryu insisted. But things were fading. The lines of the world were slipping into each other, and even though he blinked, blinked hard and even squeezed his eyes shut, the images came. _Orihime. Beautiful. Smiling. Lips twisting, mouth opening__—__Ishida-kun, look out__—__sword, blood, the gleam of his arrow as it pierced the murderer's heartless chest__—_

"Well, I am," said Tatsuki, and the simple words chased away the images for the time being. Uryu fought the urge to sag against the wall of the nearest building and prevailed.

"Look, Tatsuki…" Ichigo stepped forward and entered Uryu's line of vision. The orange-haired boy was holding out an appeasing hand, his confused gaze slipping from Uryu to Tatsuki and back again. "Maybe this…whatever you're talking about, maybe now's not really the greatest time, you know? And maybe this isn't the best place, either."

Tatsuki looked torn for a moment, caught between giving into her urge to flee from this horrible street and confronting Uryu. The anger boiled in his stomach, a festering plague waiting to be fed. The images hovered on the edge of his consciousness, and suddenly, Uryu could take no more.

"I said I'm not talking about this," he snapped, and willed himself away from the concerned stares of his friends.

He had underestimated the force his anger would put behind Hirenkyaku. The Quincy's feet hit the floor before he was ready, and his knees buckled like bent twigs, almost sending him sprawling. He caught himself on his hands and knees and stayed there for a long time, breathing ragged, asthmatic breaths that sounded like they belonged to someone much, much older and angrier than himself. His fingers curled in the carpet, and it was only then that he realized this carpet was a shade of neutral beige, not the deep blue of his carpet at home.

"Oh, Ishida-kun," a soft voice said, and pumpkin-colored locks of hair spilled over his shoulders as two gentle hands cradled his head. Uryu lurched upright and leaned back on his heels. Orihime knelt in front of him, eyes drooping and sad, her empty hands resting in her lap.

"What's wrong?" she asked gently. And looking into her trusting, caring dove-gray eyes, Uryu found he could not answer.

Orihime sighed at the shake of his head. "I wish you would tell me what's wrong, Ishida-kun. I want to help you."

No. He couldn't tell her; Tatsuki was right. If Orihime found out he blamed himself for her death, she might blame herself in turn. He couldn't tell her, no matter how much she begged him with those huge eyes of hers. Uryu distracted himself with looking around himself, taking in everything from the bare, naked walls and the random stains in the carpet. Empty. Everything was so _empty_. Orihime's home was never supposed to look like this.

Abruptly, Orihime took in a deep breath, like a diver about to release her air-tank and drift into the dark depths. "Ishida-kun, I think…I think you should tell me how I died."

* * *

A/N: Please review!

-Kimsa


	5. Five: What Was Missing

(Posted for the newest P.U.L.L. entry, 11/12/10, a project created by Bookaholic711.)

You guys are so awesome. Seriously - I wasn't expecting all of you to be still reading. Thanks for commenting! I know I haven't replied yet, but I promise that as soon as I find some spare time, I'll respond. For the moment, just know that your feedback has made me a very happy authoress. :)

Disclaimer: _Bleach _doesn't belong to me.

* * *

_Five: What Was Missing_

Uryu closed his eyes. For a long time he simply knelt there, breathing in the mustiness of Orihime's abandoned home, where she had puttered around the kitchen, concocting up poisonous monstrosities against mankind, where she had slept, laughed, breathed.

No longer.

Slowly, he opened his eyes and met Orihime's gaze. She begged him without words, her blue-gray eyes wide and pleading, her fine-boned hands clutching each other as if she was about to raise them to the heavens in supplication. _She doesn't deserve this_, was the first thought that ran through Uryu's head. _She doesn't deserve to be kept in the dark like this. It's selfish of me, to hide it from her._

So he nodded, wordlessly, and got to his feet. "Not here," he said quietly. "Please, anywhere but here."

Orihime stood and took his hand. The icy sensation that shot up his arm was dulled by the chilling knowledge that his time was up. He could no longer run from the seed of knowledge he held within him, the seed that grew and poisoned the very air he took into his lungs. But at least he hadn't been poisoning anyone else. Now, he was about to infect the girl he loved.

Uryu took Orihime to the sidewalk where her blood had once painted the concrete brilliant red. All signs of her murder were gone now, as well as all signs of his friends; they must have taken the hint and left to their own lives. At least they wouldn't be there to hear what he was about to say, Chad and Tatsuki, and Rukia, though he was sure she knew full well what had happened.

And Ichigo. Especially not Ichigo.

Orihime waited patiently while Uryu steeled himself. He slipped into the easy practice of distancing himself from the situation, wiping all traces of emotion from his expression, though he knew it would hurt Orihime to do so. It was a practice that had been second nature to him in the presence of his father, and all other threats to his well-being.

When he spoke, he was relieved to find that he could still hear himself over the hum of the occasional car that passed them by.

"Tell me what you remember, Inoue-san."

Orihime blinked and touched a finger to her lower lip in deep thought. "I remember you," she said simply, and he flinched to think that he was the first person she would recall. If only she knew. "I remember talking to you, and then…there was something about…black. And red. I remember the colors black and red. And then everything hurt, and I…" She trailed off and shook her head in disappointment. "I'm sorry, Ishida-kun. That's all I remember."

He nodded. It was to be expected. "Then I'll tell you," he started, and swallowed when his voice threatened to fail him. "I'll tell you how you died."

* * *

_Meeting Orihime on the street was purely accidental, and he would curse it to the day he died. He was too preoccupied with balancing the bags of groceries he'd slung on his arms to notice her, and nearly ran into her before she stopped and said, "Ishida-kun!"_

_He halted in his tracks and looked up. There she was, smiling shyly, her eyes bright and her cheeks flushed from the walk. "Inoue-san," he said. "I'm sorry__—__I should have watched where I was going."_

_She shook her head, sending pumpkin-colored locks of hair flying around her face. "No, it's all right, Ishida-kun. I should have…aha…I should have called out to you sooner."_

_Uryu shifted uncomfortably on his feet. He wasn't sure what to say, or what to do; Orihime had been withdrawn of late, keeping to herself in her apartment, never calling on any of them to visit like she used to. He worried about her, if he was plainly honest with himself. He worried that the cold of Hueco Mundo had settled into her bones and stayed there._

_"Are you all right?" he asked her, seeing that her gaze was drifting toward her feet and that her brow was wrinkling with something akin to worry. Orihime started and gave him a nervous little smile. _

_"Yes, I'm fine," she said, and immediately paused, as if she'd caught herself in the act of telling a lie. "No, I mean…yes, I'm okay. I'm fine."_

_Uryu frowned and shifted to the side to let someone pass him by on the sidewalk. "Inoue-san, if something is wrong…"_

_"No, it's just…I've been thinking. A lot. You know, I had a lot of time to think in Las Noches, and maybe thinking is the only thing I can do _right_ any more, you know, because I wanted to protect others, but I couldn't. So I think a lot." Orihime stopped mid-ramble, met his eye, saw something she didn't like and looked away again. "I was just…taking a walk."_

"_Oh." Uryu hesitated and shifted his weight again. He wanted to say something comforting and supportive, but he was sure it wasn't his place. That was something Orihime would want to hear from Ichigo, not him. "Would you like me to walk you back home?"_

_Orihime looked up and shook her head no. "I think I spend too much time in there, alone. I need to talk to someone. To you."_

"_Ah." Uryu cursed himself__—__it was obvious that Orihime was struggling in the wake of Hueco Mundo, though it had been more than a week since her rescue. He had to come up with something more comforting and encouraging than "ah" or "oh."_

"_Well, we can…go somewhere else, to talk," he suggested. But it appeared Orihime wasn't listening. Her small hands tugged at the hem of her pink shirt, the shirt he'd painstakingly made for her back in Soul Society. Her blue-gray eyes stared down past her long, ruffled white skirt to her sandal-clad feet. With a jolt he realized that s__he was paler than before, soft-colored from days of being shut away in a land where day and sunlight and fresh air did not exist. Her two front teeth took her chapped bottom lip and gnawed on it worriedly, as if she were afraid._

"_Ishida-kun?" she murmured._

"_What is it, Inoue-san?" he asked in a subdued voice. "What's wrong?"_

_Orihime lifted her head and squared her shoulders. "I'm not going to wait any more," she said calmly. "I thought I could, but after Las Noches…after everything Aizen did, everything I saw, I can't. Today is the day." She bit her lip again, but this time it was to suppress the golden smile spreading across her lips like wildfire. "No more waiting."_

_Then the girl he loved took a deep, steadying breath, looked him in the eye and uttered the last words that would ever crush his heart._

_"Today is the day I confess to the one I love."_

Kurosaki_._

_He remembered exactly how he'd felt. It was as if the sun, even hidden as it was behind a thick layer of clouds, had suddenly gone out. Uryu felt himself closing off, retreating behind the impenetrable shell he'd built to protect himself in these situations. _

_"I see," he said coldly, turning his head to the side so he wouldn't have to meet her eye. "That's very nice, Inoue-san, but I fail to see what this has to do with me."_

_He might not have been looking at her, and the road wasn't exactly empty or silent even on a dreary day like this, but he heard the way her breath caught in her throat nonetheless. "I…" she stumbled. "I'm sor__—__Ishida-kun, don't be angry with me."_

_The entreating brush of her hand against his suddenly repelled him. "I'm not," he said. His tone came out harsher than he'd intended, and Orihime pulled her hand back to her chest, her dove-gray eyes huge and glistening. __The hurt in her gaze killed him, but all he could think about was how he had waited for her, how she had fallen for Ichigo of all people, and how she sought to wound him further by letting him know before she told anyone else._

_"Oh," Orihime murmured. "Okay."_

_The softness of her voice snapped him out of his angry, hurt haze. Uryu took in a deep breath, closed his eyes and counted silently to three – one, two, three – reminding himself that it wasn't her fault she couldn't read his mind and soul, couldn't see through his impenetrable defenses and into his heart. "No, Inoue-san. It's not okay. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that."_

"_It's fine!" She laughed and rubbed the back of her head. If there was one thing Hueco Mundo had not changed about her, it was her unfailing ability to hide her hurt and plaster a smile over lips that only wanted to twist into a grimace of pain. "Really, Ishida-kun. Don't apologize. I understand."_

"_No," he said, because she really could never, never understand. How could she, when she didn't know how he felt about her, when she couldn't see how it made him feel when her eyes lit up around Ichigo, around the boy who had become the monster, the same monster that had stabbed him clean through with a Hollow's sword and stuck him to the ground like a pinned bug? _

"_No, Inoue-san, you don't understand. I—"_

_In his memories, everything happened so quickly. Orihime's gaze shifted behind him, her mouth falling open in a gruesome scream. Crippling spiritual pressure crushed him from all sides, making him feel like he was being flattened between two buildings. The grocery bags slipped from his fingers and fell to the ground._

_He prided himself on his considerable speed, and his perceptiveness, but there had been no warning for this._

"_Ishida-kun," Orihime screamed, her hands fisting in his shirt, "look out!"_

_Too late. Too late, he attempted to summon his spirit bow. Too late, he tried to position himself in front of Orihime, to protect her from the attacker. Too late, he thought to resist her as she pushed him, suddenly, inexplicably strong in her determination, her love for her friend. _

_Uryu fell against the side of the building nearest him, and so it was that he saw everything when the black-and-red demon plunged from the sky, and drove its zanpakutou through Orihime's chest._

_Everything froze. Orihime stood open-mouthed, her eyes bulging, the soul-cutter protruding from her torso like a scalpel driven into an animal laid out of dissection. Uryu heard a scream burst from his throat, raw and animal and agonized, as Orihime slid free of the blade and crumpled to the ground. Her attacker stepped away, shook its head as if confused. Words rumbled from its throat._

"_Protect…" the monster murmured, shaking its head as if bewildered by the blood on its blade, the dying girl at its feet. "Protect…must protect…"_

_Uryu knew this face. He knew the black-and-red mask, the curling horns, the long, flowing orange hair. The last time he'd seen this creature, he had almost died._

_Ichigo Kurosaki__—__no, not Ichigo, his inner monster, his Hollow. And it had killed Orihime in its drive to protect her._

_Protect her from _Uryu_._

_The beast must have sensed that Orihime was distraught. It had burst free of Ichigo's control and had come to save Orihime, to protect her from whatever it was that was threatening her well-being. Him. Uryu._

_Something shattered inside him, as if all his internal organs were made of glass, and he called up his bow with a ragged shout. The beast heard him and finally turned away from Orihime's sprawled form. It faced him, horns lowered, teeth bared. Maybe it understood what it had done, that in its attempt to kill the threat, it had eliminated its charge instead. Whatever the reason, it didn't attack or try to defend itself._

_Not even when a hundred of Uryu's quickest arrows pierced its chest and sent it plummeting into oblivion._

_Uryu stopped only to catch Ichigo's falling body as the boy, returned to his former self, appeared on the sidewalk and folded into unconsciousness. People were gathering around him, running from all sides of the street, chattering and clamoring at the bleeding girl, and the unconscious boy who had appeared out of thin air, and the guilty archer who was kneeling between the people closest to him and wishing he were dead._

_Orihime was still alive, miraculously. Her breath fluttered in and out of her like curling smoke, and he knew already that even the sirens wailing in the distance could not save her. _

"_Don't…" _

_Uryu could barely hear Orihime's weak whisper over the chatter of the people surrounding them, but at the sound of her voice everyone fell silent. Now, the only sounds in the world were the blood rushing through his ears, and the faint wheeze of Orihime's breath, and the pulsing throb of her lifeblood as it pumped out of her and onto the sidewalk._

"_Don't cry, Ishida-kun," she breathed, and he realized with a start that his cheeks were wet. A sob was coiling up in his throat, threatening to be released. "I'll be all right," Orihime wheezed. "I'll be…"_

_She trailed off into silence, and Uryu reached for her hand. She was cold to the touch, freezing, as if she was already dead. _

"_Don't," he heard himself gasp, and then stronger, "Don't go, Inoue-san, wait…"_

_The light flickered in her eyes. "Don't worry…about me…go find…find…"_

_She sighed and went silent. In her chest, her breath died._

_Uryu stayed by her side, unmoving, unfeeling save for the numb, icy feeling in his chest. He knelt by her side until the paramedics came and tugged at him with their hands, and still it didn't hit him, that she was gone, really gone. Not until the paramedics looked at each other, and shook their heads, and got out a body bag._

_Orihime was dead. _

_**Orihime was dead**__._

_Uryu retained enough sanity of mind to take Ichigo back to his house and put him on his bed. If Ichigo asked, Uryu told the boy's father, he'd had an accident and hit his head. Maybe Isshin would come up with a better answer. Maybe they would have to erase Ichigo's memories. He didn't care._

_All he wanted to do was go home, and curse himself, and mourn._

_

* * *

_

The tears that streaked Orihime's cheeks were no less real than if she had still been alive. Uryu restrained the urge to step forward and wrap her in a comforting embrace. Now she knew. Now she knew everything.

"I'm sorry," he said almost silently, even though it would fix nothing. "Inoue-san, I'm so sorry."

"I…" Orihime gasped, and when she reached a hand to her chest, it had nothing to do with the chain hanging there, but everything to do with the stricken pain in her voice. "It was…oh, Kurosaki-kun…"

Uryu didn't react. He kept himself utterly still, even as Orihime's ghost grew frayed at the edges, and she took a step away from him.

"I'm sorry," she cried, even as she drifted away. "I'm sorry, Ishida-kun, I have to…think…"

Then she was gone, and he was left only with the knowledge of what he had done.

* * *

Orihime wandered for a long time, floating across the land like the ghost she was. She drifted from place to place, country to country, her feet leaden and her head buzzing with a million fractured thoughts. She felt numb, numb everywhere.

_I should get back to Ishida-kun, _she thought once, staring out towards the ocean. A short distance away, a mother and her two young children played and danced on the sands of the beach.

_He'll miss me, _Orihime thought, but nothing could rouse her from the gloom she had settled into.

She was dead by Ichigo's hand. Maybe not by his will, and God, she hoped he didn't remember anything, but it had been his Hollow that had killed her. There was a dark, heavy feeling in the middle of her chest, and it hurt more than anything she had ever felt before, but she couldn't bring herself to hate him.

Slowly, the morning passed into afternoon, and the afternoon passed into evening. When the sunlight turned ripe and golden, Orihime's ghost lifted her head and forced herself to admit that she could wander no longer.

This was her last day on Earth. Her last day to cherish those around her. Who knew when she would be able to come back?

Willing herself back to Karakura was painful; it felt like her insides were being torn two different ways, and it gave her a nasty headache that did not relent no matter how hard she rubbed her transparent forehead. She lighted down in the middle of a sidewalk and looked across the street. On the other side of the road rested a familiar house, the lights gleaming in the dimming twilight, a family of a black-haired father and his three children.

Orihime didn't wonder why she had been deposited at Ichigo's house. She simply accepted it and watched the family within crowd around the kitchen table to eat.

"I don't blame you," she murmured. The words slid out soft and true, and she knew then that she would never be able to resent Ichigo for her death. Not even if it had been his Hollow that had brought about her demise. "I hope you know that, Kurosaki-kun. If you ever find out…and I really, really hope you don't, because I know you're strong, but I don't think you could handle _this_. If you ever find out, I hope you know I don't blame you. I don't blame anyone except the Hollow, and he's gone. Don't worry, Ishida-kun took care of him. He won't be back to bother you, ever."

She broke off and stared off toward the setting sun for a moment. "I don't blame him, either," she whispered. "I don't blame Ishida-kun for my death any more than I blame you. I know he's probably beating himself up over it. It's just the kind of thing Ishida-kun would do, and it makes me sad to think that, so I have to get back to him before he does something silly. Protecting him, even if it meant my life…that was my choice. I chose that. This is my fault, and no one else's—and I wouldn't have it the other way around. If Ishida-kun was dead instead of me, I don't…I couldn't…"

Orihime paused and took in a shaky, frightened breath. "I don't think I could forgive myself!"

Silence descended over her again in a floating veil. In the distance, she heard the sounds of the living: cars honking, the thrum of traffic, the constant buzz that reassured her that she wasn't the only person left in the world on lonely nights.

"I'll miss this," she said to herself. "I'll miss you and Ishida-kun and living, being with all my friends and…and doing fun and silly things like baking potato cake and making soup from mustard paste and hot water."

Orihime lifted her gaze away from the sunset and focused on Ichigo. "I don't love you," she said firmly. "Not anymore. I did, Kurosaki-kun, believe me—I loved you so much it _hurt_. And that was the problem. I was always helpless around you, weak, a damsel in distress." She laughed softly. "Look at that. Me, the damsel, an angel now. Shouldn't I have wings now? A damsel with wings. Ohh! What's that dragonfly-thing, the one that looks like a smaller, prettier dragonfly? Damselfly? I think so.

"It's not your fault I'm helpless around you, Kurosaki-kun. I just need to be my own person. I'm…I'm dead. I'm starting a new life. And I want to start my new life as a strong person. I hope you can understand. I just get so tired of being rescued."

Orihime pushed a breathy sigh from the depths of her chest and took a step backwards. "Now I have to go do the rescuing," she giggled. "I have to go rescue Ishida-kun from himself. Because I didn't push him out of the way just because he's my friend. I pushed him out of the way because…"

She paused and shook her head, rubbing at her head with a shaky laugh. "Because he's what was missing. Because I fell out of love with you, Kurosaki-kun, not just because it hurt to love you—but because I was falling in love with someone else. I didn't even realize it until it hit me. And guess what? It didn't hurt a bit."

Then she turned away, and walked into the dwindling light, to Uryu.

* * *

A/N: Please review. And before you doubt Orihime's sudden revelation, wait for the next chapter - it will explain everything.

-Kimsa


	6. Six: Come Morning

_...God, it feels good to update._

Writer's block. Real life. College. A lot of things contributed to the long wait for this chapter, and I'm afraid that none of them could really be avoided. That said, I do feel so, so so guilty for making you wait. Sorriesss :( Hope I haven't lost too many of you out there.

(Super-late entry for the P.U.L.L. post 2/4/11)

Disclaimer: I disclaim.

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Six: Come Morning

When he was sixteen years old, Uryu learned that the world in grieving was divided up into infinitesimal slivers of color. Nothing was whole. Everywhere there lingered a meaningless blur, as if he'd been wounded in the eyes and was traveling through a fog, his hands loose and boneless at his sides. Speckles of ruby, red as anger and the hot haze of pain. Streaks of yellow like lemons, like illness and sunlight. Streamers of silver and azure and a piercing white that sliced into his palms when he tried to grab hold of the spinning world and make it lie still.

_Where am I?_

He stumbled along the road like a drifter, aimless, thoughtless save for the aching pocket of regret that opened up in him like an oven and coughed its blistering waves through his wrecked form.

He'd done something terrible.

_She blames me. I saw the look on her face when I confessed. She blames me for her death. _

A small wicked voice inside him reared its grinning head and taunted, _And whose fault is that?_

Distantly, Uryu felt himself sinking to his knees. The sharp edge of stone drove its teeth into his shins and gnawed enthusiastically, bringing some of the world back into focus with the discomfort it caused. He blinked. Around him, gray stone and grass the color of summer formed the outline of the cemetery where they'd held Orihime's funeral service. He knew what he would find in front of him before he even looked.

The resting place of the dead girl's ashes looked like nothing more than a small black slab of marble. Instead of his own face staring at him in the stone's reflective surface, he caught the distorted image of Orihime's expression as he'd last seen her: her cheeks soaked with tears, her mouth open, shocked, her eyes brimming with betrayal.

"_I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Ishida-kun…"_

Uryu jerked back and got to his feet, staggering. "What were you apologizing for?" he murmured to himself. "You didn't do anything wrong."

Something flickered on the horizon of his sight. When a Hollow's screech rent the air, he didn't flinch, not when any soul who could hear the demon-spirit's cry would have. He merely lifted his arm and, without looking, fired off an arrow. The Hollow went silent mid-scream.

The edge of his spirit bow hummed with raw power in his hands. Uryu watched the reflection of its light jump and skitter across the black grave stones like a living, fleeing thing. Silver and azure and piercing white.

"_Protect…must protect…"_

In a shriek of wind and light, he was gone. All that was left where he'd stood was the faint imprint of his shoes, and a clinging chill in the thin air.

* * *

Sometime later—hours, days later, who knew—burning, insistent pain gnawed at the boundaries of Uryu's consciousness, but he ignored the blood that was starting to trickle its way down his wrists, his forearms and elbows, and focused. _Focus_.

Beneath the power of Ginrei Kojaku, the Hollows fell before they even fully materialized in the Real World. The moment one was subdued, Uryu disappeared, arcing across the country to places he had never been, seeking to distract himself through his duty as a Quincy.

_This is the least I can do, _he told himself. _Pull back. Let go. Pull back. Let go. And if the death gods take offense to my repentance, then they can have me. It's no less than I deserve._

So he jumped from place to place, landmark to landmark, losing himself and his guilt in the steady motion of the push and pull of the bow, the crimson trails running down from his torn fingers and fractured fingernails. And still, when he took a moment to rest and replenish his energies, the guilt rushed in upon him and he was tormented by the memory of Orihime's shocked, stricken face. The way she had stepped back from him, retreated. The way she'd fled as if the sight of him frightened her.

_It's no less than I deserve, _he thought harshly. His knees trembled with exhaustion and he crumbled against the building of the closest wall. With his legs drawn up to his chest, his bleeding hands were hidden from view. Passing people gave his collapsed form one half-curious, half-concerned glance, and hurried on their way to more important things, never bearing the crumpled boy in white a second thought. And that was the way it should have been, as far as Uryu was concerned.

He had no idea where he was. He knew it wasn't Karakura Town anymore, because Karakura didn't have towering, glittering office buildings like these, nor did it have bustling crowds that pushed past him and occasionally knocked him aside the head with briefcases, and didn't even stop to see what they had hit.

The sun was going down. It was Orihime's last day on Earth, and the sun was going down, damn it.

_It wasn't supposed to end like this. _Uryu lifted his head and squinted into the sun's dim glare. _I knew it would happen. But…I had hoped that it wouldn't. I had hoped. _

He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes against the dying sunlight, the people who rushed around him and determined him invisible, the red that stained the sleeves of his uniform.

_What a stupid thing to do._

Slowly, Uryu rose to his feet. He was sure several people screamed when he disappeared directly in front of them, but could not bring himself to care. Thoughtless, he set foot down in Karakura, picked up the thread of the nearest Hollow, and followed it to the waterfall where he'd trained to invade Soul Society.

Orihime was the first thing he saw. She lay sprawled on the smooth rocks around the water's edge, her skirt twisted up along her legs, one hand already going for flower-shaped pins that weren't there. Crouching over her, a diamond-headed Hollow grinned and reached its claws toward the dead girl like an overeager child.

Uryu lifted his hand and shot the demon-spirit clean through its head.

Orihime flinched. Her hair caught the light as she turned her head to find him standing there, bloodied hands at his sides. For a horrible, icy instant, Uryu couldn't breathe. _She'll scream_, said an irrational, nervous voice inside him. _She'll run from me as if I were that Hollow._

He was taken off guard when Orihime flew to her feet and, instead of seeing her translucent figure disappearing rapidly into the distance, he was enveloped in an ice-cold embrace. She was soft and sweet-smelling and freezing to death.

"Ishida-kun," Orihime gasped into his neck. Her breath pooled along his collarbone like frigid mercury. "I was coming to find you, I wanted to apologize—that thing came out of nowhere—"

Uryu drew away gently. The world shivered at the sight of her so close, too close, too close to let him breathe and think. He couldn't think.

"Inoue-san," he began, his eyes sliding away, but she caught his wrist and begged him.

"Please, please just listen," she said. "I hurt you, Ishida-kun. I'm sorry. I was selfish, I was confused. I was only thinking about myself, and—I don't blame you. Please don't think I blame you for this. I just had to figure some things out."

Something heavy and sharp lurched in him like a toppled skyscraper. Orihime must have seen something of the collapse in his face, because she reached up and cupped his cheeks with her small, frostbitten hands. "What do I have to do?" she asked. Her voice shook. "What do I have to do to convince you?"

Uryu shook his head wordlessly. He believed Orihime when she said she didn't blame him, but it didn't change the fact that _he_ blamed _himself_. He didn't think anything ever would.

"Do you believe me?" Orihime asked. Her hands trembled against his cheeks.

Uryu hesitated, and then, though he knew the absence of her icy touch would hurt, he took her hands and lowered them back to her sides. She stared at him with eyes swimming with tears, a throat that swallowed and clenched past the tightness he knew was constricting her every breath. It had him in its grasp, too.

"Yes," he said simply, quietly. She looked at him for a long time, the shadows softening her face as the sun slid past the horizon. Around them, all was sheathed in the half-gloom of dusk. Orihime stirred.

"But you don't believe yourself." Her voice was hesitant and soft, as if she was discovering the truth of the words as she spoke them, sifting through his unvoiced lies to find the regret that festered and swelled at the bottom of his ribcage.

"You don't…" Orihime's words faltered and tripped, picked themselves up and tottered on like wounded soldiers. "If you said that you didn't blame yourself for this, for all of this, it would be a lie. Wouldn't it? Ishida-kun?"

He couldn't look at her. His gaze slid toward his hands hanging at his sides, stained red. Red like anger, like pain, like losing the person you loved most in the world.

"Yes."

Orihime didn't say anything. The silence settled around them and across their shoulders like fresh snow, easily disturbed at the tiniest gesture.

Finally, Orihime's ghost sighed. Once, her breath would have turned silver in the moonlight and formed little clouds, but now, there wasn't even a puff of air against his cheek. She was fading. Fast.

"It's night," she whispered. Her words landed somewhere around their feet and rested there as helplessly as newborn babies laid to sleep. Uryu's blood dripped from his fingers and spattered the stones beneath his shoes. "My last night."

The Quincy looked up. Orihime had become even paler with the setting of the sun and the rising of the moon. She was as transparent as any other ghost now, a mere outline against the very real, very cold world, staring past him toward something only she could see. Something tightened painfully in him and on impulse Uryu reached for her hand. His fingers passed through her.

Orihime gasped. "I wasn't paying attention," she mumbled, and reached for him with a look of concentration on her heart-shaped face. This time, their fingers touched and held on, clinging to each other like swimmers stranded in the middle of the sea.

"You're bleeding," Orihime remarked, her face scrunching in worry. "Is…is this from the Quincy bow?"

Uryu nodded. Orihime's mouth twisted, and she began to ask why, but stopped at the look on his face. Where her heart should have been, the terrifyingly-short soul chain clattered.

"I know how I want to spend my last night," Orihime announced suddenly. She squeezed his bleeding, stinging hand a little, though not enough to hurt him. "I want to spend it with you, Ishida-kun. I want to lie under the stars and look up at the moon, and when the shinigami find me and take me to the Seireitei, I want to compare our moon and their moon and see which one shines brighter in the dark."

She tugged on his hand then, ushering him along, and she might have been fading and cold as death to the touch, but even now she seemed to radiate with her own light, a beacon that led him on through the trees and the shadows until they found an open field of grass and stretched out under the moon, side by side. Orihime held his hand the entire time.

They talked of everything and nothing for a long time. Friends, family, loss, happiness. What they'd wanted to be when they grew up, the places they'd wanted to see. The things they regretted the most and the things they only wished they'd done. They spoke for so long that toward the end, Uryu could tell the sky would soon begin to lighten.

His breath pooled silver and white in the air. Hers did not, but if he stared hard at the stars and ignored the deathly chill of her hand in his, it was almost as if they were both still alive. Almost as if one of them didn't have to leave much, much too soon.

"It's not forever," Orihime noted, her voice drifting along the air like a small, bobbing sailboat. Uryu looked over to see her eyes sliding shut. Her face was tilted toward the paling sky.

"The shinigami know who I am," the girl's ghost continued. "They'll let me visit. I think I'll be part of the Fourth Squad. A healer. I think I'd be good at that; at least I wouldn't have to fight anyone. Then they could send me here, with Kuchiki-san, maybe. And I'll get to see you."

She paused. A band of lemon-yellow was beginning to creep its way over the horizon.

"Why do you blame yourself?"

Uryu closed his eyes. Behind his eyelids, he caught the flash of the zanpakutou going in, coming out, bringing with it a spray of brilliant blood. He opened his eyes.

"That monster came out because of me. If I hadn't upset you over nothing, it never would have broken through Kurosaki's control. It was aiming for me all along."

Orihime was quiet for a moment. Then she squeezed his hand, hard, and this time it hurt like hell.

"I know I don't have a heart anymore, not really," she said, eyeing a stream of pink-red as it made its way over the horizon to color the sky, "but when I think of how you blame yourself for something I chose, something in there hurts."

Uryu kept very still, even as Orihime loosened her grip on his fingers and turned her head to look him in the eye. The first ray of sunlight slid along the length of her neck and turned her translucent skin golden.

"What did I say to make you so angry that day?" Orihime asked quietly. "I don't remember much. I have what you told me, but I still don't understand why. Please tell me."

Uryu blinked at her slowly. She couldn't know what she was asking him to do; she couldn't know that petty jealousy had been behind his anger that day. He couldn't tell her that he loved her. Not when she was about to leave.

"Telling you would be selfish of me," he croaked out. His throat was impossibly dry. He could almost feel the tiny cracks forming along his esophagus, bleeding, filling his mouth with guilt and nervousness.

Orihime had a look in her eye that said she wanted to touch Uryu's cheek and let her hand rest there, a look that said a hundred things he'd always wanted to hear from her, but always thought she would say them to Ichigo instead. But he must have been imagining things. He was exhausted and guilt-stricken and his mind was just going through the natural motions of trying to comfort him. Of this, he was sure.

Until Orihime parted her lips and spoke.

"I want to tell you want I was going to say that day," she murmured. "I hope you won't be angry. I don't know what's going to happen. But I heard once that if I don't say it, I'll spend the rest of my life wondering. My life's already over. I don't want to spend eternity wondering."

The dead girl smiled, brilliantly, beautifully. She lay beside him in the breaking sunlight and breathed the words like sacred secrets, one hand resting gently against his cheek, the other lying between them. In her open palm, she held her heart.

"So today is the day I confess to the one I love."

The world was in her eyes. The world was divided into infinitesimal slivers of color.

"I give you my heart and soul, Ishida-kun," she said softly. "I give you my hopes, my dreams, my everything. They are yours to keep. Because if not for you, I wouldn't get up in the morning. I wouldn't smile and I wouldn't laugh. If not for you, I wouldn't live. I think I love you, Ishida Uryu. I think I started to love you in Soul Society and I know I love you now. Please don't be angry. I only wanted you to know."

The look in her eyes would remain with him forever. Years from now, he would look back on this single instant, this silent moment in which everything in the world seemed to suspend time and fall into the quiet. Orihime studied him with eyes brimming with determination, nerves and something he couldn't quite place.

_The world is divided into slivers of color._

Uryu reached for her hand on his cheek and gently laced his fingers through his. Orihime's eyes glimmered with hope.

"Do you know why," Uryu said quietly, "I was so angry when you told me you were going to confess to someone?"

Orihime shook her head the tiniest bit. "Why?"

Uryu swallowed. "It's because I thought those words weren't for me."

And she knew. Looking into his eyes as if she saw the entire world there, the entire universe, Orihime made the connection and knew the secret he'd kept for so long it felt like eternity.

"Ishida-kun," she said, running her fingers across his cheek. Her eyes crinkled at the edges, and he heard the tears in her voice. "Ishida-kun," Orihime carded her fingers through his hair, burrowed her face into his neck and breathed, "Ishida-kun," and something twisted sharply in his chest before finally letting go. His lungs filled with air.

"Ishida-kun…"

They lay there, holding on, until the sun broke over the lines of the world and turned everything to light.

* * *

In the distance, a petite black-robed figure bided her time and pushed her luck until it teetered and threatened to fall. She watched the two figures lying on the grass until one of them wavered and reached a hand toward her heart. Then, she stepped forward on careful, cautious feet and touched the girl's shoulder as gently as she knew how.

"Inoue-chan," Rukia said with a look of regret, and the girl knew that it was time.

Uryu rose with Orihime to face the death god who had come to put one of them to rest. The blood had long ago dried on his hands. He could feel it cracking, falling away under the pressure as Orihime squeezed his fingers again.

"Looks like it's time to go," she said lightly. She held his hand still and gave him a look that said, _Smile, Ishida-kun. I'll see you again soon._

And Uryu did smile. He smiled and watched as she looked away, toward the hilt of Rukia's outstretched zanpakutou, as if she was facing not a blade but a friend that would send her to the highest part of the sky.

Orihime looked Rukia head-on and said, her voice ringing with truth, "I'm ready."

Rukia inclined her head. Smiling warmly, she promised, "I'll be there when you come out on the other side."

Orihime nodded and closed her eyes. Her mouth was still smiling when the zanpakutou touched her forehead. Her hand held his, gentle even as she fell away, ascended, and when she rose it felt like she was taking Uryu with her, to live amongst spirits who would greet her like an old friend, wrap her in silken black, and teach her to use that beaming smile to heal a hurting ghost's wounds.

His cupped fingers finally held nothing but air thrumming with sunlight.

Rukia reached up and rested a hand reassuringly on Uryu's shoulder. "I'll find her the second she steps through," she told him. "Give her a few days to adjust. Then I'm sure she'll start to miss you so much I'll _have_ to bring her back."

Uryu lifted his gaze from his empty hands to stare at her, and Rukia's mouth curled up at the corners in a confident smirk he knew far too well.

"You should get home," she called, fading into the sun, leaving to greet Orihime when she set foot in Rukongai. "I have a feeling some people are waiting for you there."

Then there was only him, and his empty hands, and the lingering warmth of Orihime's smile.

* * *

A/N: One more chapter, and then we come to a close.

Though I know I don't deserve them, I would still love to hear your thoughts. I worked very hard to make this chapter the best it could be.

-Kimsa


	7. Seven: Dragonfly

3/4/11 P.U.L.L. post for Bookaholic711's project.

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach - and neither do I own Markus Zusak's _The Book Thief_. Geez, that book almost made me cry. :/

Thank you, everyone who reviewed, everyone who stuck with this story, though I know it took a while to complete.

Enjoy!

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Seven: Dragonfly

"_I wanted to tell the book thief many things, about beauty and brutality… I wanted to explain that I am constantly overestimating and underestimating the human race__—__that rarely do I ever simply _estimate_ it. I wanted to ask her how the same thing could be so ugly and so glorious, and its words and stories so damning and brilliant. _

…_I am haunted by humans." – _Death_, The Book Thief. _

* * *

Three people were waiting for Uryu when he arrived home. Their shadows were cast long and dark across the sidewalk, almost as if they were reaching for him, welcoming him into their midst.

Perhaps that was just the huddled child inside him, though, so very, very alone.

The smallest figure was the first to notice him. She cursed fiercely when her dark eyes sight on his blood-stained sleeves, but the hands that turned his injured hands over were gentle. "What'd you do to yourself this time, idiot?"

The second person held a heavy-looking box in his long, dark arms and greeted Uryu with a nod and a simple, "Ishida," to which he inclined his head.

And the last…the last stood there with his hands in his pockets and an understanding look in his amber eyes, his shadow endless and distorted behind him, but only human. No horns, no grating fangs, no jagged mask.

Tatsuki. Chad. Ichigo.

"Hey, Ishida," Ichigo said. He shifted and looked away, his eyes sliding across the Quincy as through a ghost. "…Inoue's gone."

Uryu didn't answer; it wasn't a question. It was more of a half-hopeful challenge. But no one was going to prove him wrong this time.

"Geez, Ishida," said Tatsuki. Her tone was harsh and patronizing, her touch careful and concerned as she released his bloodied hands. "You know that's going to scar, right?"

"Yes," he replied, but he was not thinking of the rifts in his flesh. He was picturing bare pink feet in the grass, Orihime's brilliant smile, the rapturous look on her face as she ascended to heaven. It was going to scar, and it would be the one he bore with the most pride, more than the Quincy-pentacle over his heart, more than the coldness he knew others saw in his frown.

Tatsuki seemed to catch something of his thoughts in his voice. She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her thin lips. "Come on, Ishida. Get inside and get those bandaged."

Uryu didn't try to stop them when they followed him inside. Mostly it was because he could acknowledge the futility of resistance—Tatsuki probably would have tried to break through the window using Ichigo's head, and Chad would simply kick the door in without a second's hesitation—but perhaps he just didn't feel like mustering up the frigid façade he used to push most people away. It was cold inside his apartment, and their friendship was warm.

"I'm not even gonna ask what you were doing to do this to yourself," Tatsuki said, watching him once he'd found his first aid kit and sat on the couch, attending to his injured hands and forearms. He released a pale sigh once the last bandage was in place and looked at his swathed hands in front of him.

Chad, standing next to Ichigo and Tatsuki in the middle of the room, set the box he carried on the floor and spoke up. "When Orihime left, did she…look happy?"

Uryu closed his eyes. He saw her smile and the orange-gold gleam of her hair in the sun, and nodded. "She looked…like she was going home."

Tatsuki's features hardened into the self-assured mask she wore throughout the day, but she folded her arms across her abdomen, as if she were cold. "What do we do now?" she asked, and it sounded like she was asking the world.

No one answered. Thoughtlessly, Uryu made a move as to get up. Something dug into his hip as he shifted and he paused, reaching into his pocket. Warm metal touched his fingers.

The locket gleamed dully against his skin when he brought it into the open. He held it carefully and unhooked the tiny latch that swung back to reveal Orihime's smiling picture.

For a moment, no one said anything. Then Ichigo offered, "Are you gonna keep it?"

Wordlessly, Uryu closed his fingers around the locket. When he looked up, everyone was smiling at him.

"…Good."

His stomach, which he hadn't fed in almost a day, chose to break that moment with a forceful growl. The friends stared at each other, and then, as if it was a glass wall fracturing, falling apart, the tension in the room broke. Tatsuki snorted with laughter, and suddenly, they were all grinning and chuckling, unable to stop. The happy sound rolled throughout the room and lapped at walls, filling his chest with heat. It sounded like companionship.

"I think that's our cue to raid your kitchen," Tatsuki said once she finally stopped laughing. She beckoned briskly with one hand. "Ichigo, help m—actually, never mind. We don't really want the house going up in flames. Chad, come help me get some food. And Ichigo…" The girl trailed off and gestured vaguely to the box Chad had set by the couch.

Uryu knew what Ichigo would show him before he even opened the box, but the sight of Orihime's belongings poking out from between cardboard folds was still like a kick to the gut. "We got 'em before anyone could donate them," Ichigo said, seeing his expression. "We thought…I dunno, we thought you might want to have something of hers. To remember, or somethin'. You know. We're gonna divide it up between our houses, so when Inoue comes to visit she'll feel more at home. That was the idea, anyway."

"…It was Chad's idea, wasn't it?" Uryu asked quietly, just to stall so he wouldn't have to reach into the box yet.

"Yeah," Ichigo admitted. He ran a hand through his messy hair and winced when a loud crash echoed from the kitchen, followed by a few choice swear words from Tatsuki and a frustrated, "Ishida, you're starving in here! You don't have anything to eat!"

The frayed corner of a blue-and-white photo album caught Uryu's attention. Carefully, he slid the album out of the box and spread it on the floor. On the first page, there was a collection of pictures taken at random times: one of Tatsuki looking off into the distance on a windy summer day, Ichigo and Chad walking toward the camera, another of Tatsuki and Ichigo sitting at their usual lunch spot. One was of Uryu busy sewing, a girl waiting eagerly at his side for her torn stuffed animal to be returned to her.

"Geez," Ichigo said, bending over the book. "I didn't even know she took half of these."

"They're candid shots," said Uryu. He turned the page to find more photos of the same kind. One of them, he saw, was simply a close-up of his eyes in the gold sunlight. Heat crept along the line of his neck; he remembered how Orihime had cajoled him into letting her take the picture. "Your eyes are so pretty, Ishida-kun," she'd said dreamily. "Please? Just one picture."

Flushing, he flipped the page. A photo slipped to the floor.

"Oh, hey." Ichigo leaned forward and scooped the picture up in his hand. "That was from the day we got back, remember? Inoue wanted us to take a picture of her after Hueco Mundo. She said it was…something about seeing if she'd changed there after all."

Uryu remembered. He had stared at the picture long after he'd taken it for Orihime, had memorized the paleness of her skin against the backdrop of the cloudless sky and the long road leading to their school. She was pale and thin in the photo, but the smile that graced her lips and lightened her eyes said with unfailing certainty, _I am glad to be back._

Ichigo looked from Uryu to the picture, and back. "Here," he said, picking it up and putting it in the Quincy's startled hands. "Keep it. For when she comes back."

Uryu blinked, surprised. Then his bandaged fingers curled in protectively around the picture, and he murmured, "Thanks." And there was warmth in his heart, because in his hands he held a photo with Orihime's smiling face on it, and around him were his friends, coming out of the kitchen now with food and affection for him, surrounding him, diving with him into a box of memories and dust and precious things.

Outside, it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day.

* * *

_Many years later_

The old man barely trembled in his sleep when Chiyo drew aside the curtains to let light into the dim hospital room. Normally, she would have waited until the patient was awake before she opened the window, but she knew that this one enjoyed waking up to the sight of the sun above him. He'd never admitted it, of course, but she could tell by the way he leaned his face into the new warmth that he appreciated the effort.

From behind her, the old man's weakening voice called, "Akita-san?"

Chiyo turned with a ready smile and bowed her head politely to the thin, withered figure resting in the hospital bed. Even before the sun had reached its zenith, even at his age, her former employer's cobalt eyes were piercing and alert. "Good morning, Ishida-sama. I'm sorry I woke you up."

Though his movements were brittle with age, he banished her worry with an unconcerned wave of his hand. Chiyo smiled and added, "How are you feeling today?"

Ishida Uryu nodded his head wordlessly. Chiyo's smile widened with fondness. No one knew much about the distant head of the hospital who employed them; he kept to himself most of the time, though when he did communicate with them he was polite and patient, if a complete no-nonsense man. Even now, elderly and declining in health, he seemed to retain some of that quiet, easy dignity his employees had come to associate with him.

Still, Chiyo knew practically nothing about the man besides the facts that he enjoyed waking up early to watch the sun begin its journey across the blue, and that on his bedside table, preserved in a picture frame of glass and polished wood was the photo of a young, smiling girl.

Ishida lifted his hand again and reached for the picture frame. Chiyo stepped forward when his arm couldn't quite make the distance. Picking up the frame in her bare hands felt a little like something strange and something forbidden; for as long as anyone could remember, their reclusive employer had never been without it. No one dared touch it, though everyone wondered.

"Here you are," Chiyo said, placing the picture frame gently into Ishida's unsteady hands. She paused, hesitating, feeling unsure of herself for the first time since she'd been assigned to Ishida and he'd reassured her in that quiet voice of his that he wasn't about to make her life miserable.

Ishida lifted his gaze at her hesitation. Those keen, filmy eyes must have seen something in her expression, because the he raised his finger and beckoned her closer. "I know…you and the others have been wondering what this picture means…for a very long time now," he said in the winded, faltering voice of those close to the end.

"Sir," Chiyo began, but he shook his withered head and gave her an almost-smile.

"I will tell you the story," he said faintly, "and you will…tell it to the others. Because I know they're asking."

So Chiyo, uncertain and excited, just the slightest bit confused as to where her plans for the immediate morning had gone, pulled up a chair and waited with baited breath for him to begin. That mysterious picture in his hands, the one of the orange-haired girl smiling into the wind and the sun with the road and sky stretching out behind her, drew her gaze with the unnatural magnetism of the unknown.

When Ishida opened his mouth to speak, Chiyo listened to the story of a quiet bespectacled boy and the girl he both loved and could not have. She grew skeptical at first when he spoke of death gods and demon-spirits, but as the story went on, she realized that he was only being that mysterious employer in his office again, all unintentional secrets and half-interpreted truths.

She finished listening to his tale with her stomach churning, unsettled, unsure of whether it should have been filled with satisfaction at receiving at least some truth, or twisting with disappointment because it hadn't been the whole truth. It couldn't have been the truth. Such legends, such fairy tales _couldn't_ be true.

"Thank you, Ishida-sama," Chiyo said anyway, deciding to smile. She could tell that the elderly man was drifting off again by the way his eyelids flickered open and closed, as if they couldn't make up their mind in the haze of sleep. "That was a beautiful story. I wish I could stay, sir, but I have other patients I need to look after. Do you…need anything, sir?" she asked politely.

The old man shook his head. "I'll see her again soon," he said, and it sounded as if it had been a long time coming, something he'd been waiting for his entire life. "Soon."

Chiyo smiled indulgently and patted Ishida's thin shoulder. "Yes, Ishida-sama. But not yet, alright? I'm going to go get you some breakfast, and we'll see what we can do about your health today. Sound good?"

She rose and made her way to the kitchens, not looking back, not seeing the way the old man smiled as if he knew something she didn't. By the time she returned, the tray in her hands, the room was quiet. Chiyo took in the sight of the sunlight spilling through the window onto the motionless figure in the bed. Ishida's hands rested quietly over the picture frame. His chest was still. Chiyo didn't need to look at the EKG to know that he had already gone to join the girl with the orange-gold hair.

When she drew closer, she saw that there was a smile on his lips.

* * *

All along the dust roads of Rukongai walked a grey-eyed girl with hair like the sunset and clothes of ebony. Years were difficult to measure in the world of the dead, but she had counted as best she could by the rising of the stars and setting of the sun. Uryu would be coming soon, she guessed. There was just an unnamable _knowing_ that rose in her abdomen like a butterfly, nervous, fluttering, eager to take flight.

Her friends walked with her every time she went out to sift through the villages and alleys of Rukongai, calling out at the top of their lungs sometimes, other times silent, but just as vigilant. Ichigo, Chad, Tatsuki, Rukia, everyone dear to Orihime was here, at her side. Uryu was the last one.

So they waited, and searched, and walked endlessly until their feet ached and their lungs were filled with the dust of the roads beneath their sandals.

One day, when the sun was shining with all its strength, there was a tremor in the air. Orihime received it in the form of a butterfly, black as welcomed death, alighting on her shoulder with barely the brush of wings against her cheek.

"He's here," she breathed. The words were sweet amongst the dirt and the hope in the air, and she began to run. She didn't know where she was going. Her friends called her name; the words reached for her ankles and snapped loose with each flying step she took. She was flying. She was flying to meet Uryu.

And he was there, suddenly, standing on the dirt road, sixteen years old again and smiling at her with his mouth and those beautiful, endlessly blue eyes.

"Inoue-san," he said, reaching for her. He was there. Waiting for her, just as she'd waited for him, for so many, many years.

Orihime stepped forth and pressed herself to him. Her arms twined around his neck, his looped around her waist. Heat pressed up behind her eyes and deep in her chest, and she pressed her lips to the corner of his mouth, sloppy with love, and cried, and cried.

Around them, their friends gathered and watched a solitary black butterfly rise into the blue of the sky.

* * *

_The End_

A/N: Please review.


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